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Nocturama Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Epitaph, 2003
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Like an embittered Bob Dylan tirelessly shoveling dirt over his 60s reputation as "protest singer," Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds have seemed adamant, in recent years, about demonstrating their versatility. Brooding, adolescent swamps of noise, gloom and frenzy that emerged from his years-long "Birthday Party" in the early 1980s slowly but diligently acquiesced to Cave's later, quieter projects with The Bad Seeds. But the transition from angry teenage poet to sobered balladeer hardly occurred overnight. Cave's endearing pursuit of the perfect love song (he has even taught courses on the subject) surfaced only gradually amid albums that ranged from bellicose to bland. Tender ballads like "Nobody's Baby Now" squeezed into the brilliantly raucous holler that characterized Let Love In, and even 2001's languidly morose And No More Shall We Part breaks into occasional freak-out jams, as in the explosions that deliver "Oh My Lord" and "Sorrowful Wife" to their manic crescendos. If 1997's gorgeous Boatman's Call represented the culmination of this betrayal of the mosh-pit in favor of a close-hugging slow dance at some late-night piano lounge, Nocturama delves confidently, if unevenly, into both of Cave's distinct personalities. Not since the 80s has Cave delivered as musically schizophrenic an album as Nocturama, journeying from the sexy swagger of gorgeous ballads "Wonderful Life" and "He Wants You" into grueling, Goth-rock festivals like "Dead Man in My Bed" and the nearly 15-minute-long "Babe, I'm On Fire." If Cave teetered on the verge of regurgitating old notes after the beautiful but predictably gentle No More Shall We Part, Nocturama's mixed bag of fluff and ferocity revitalizes a band nearing the end of its second decade. One would be rather hard-pressed to accuse Cave of softening in his middle age after experiencing Nocturama's occasional cacophonies. Despite his ambitions, though, Nocturama is Cave's least-consistent effort since Henry's Dream. Released just on the heels of And No More Shall We Part, Cave and the Seeds sound a bit rushed and beleaguered at times. Where Boatman's Call blossomed with jazzy heartbreak, Nocturama sputters and drags. Though the album's first five tracks are vintage Cave with a surprising burst of energy in "Bring it On," and the beautifully hyper "Dead Man in My Bed," the tracks that follow ring hollow and boring by comparison. As on past albums like Henry's Dream and The First Born is Dead on which great songs like "Tupelo" are followed by a succession of tracks that were more filler than killer, Nocturama's second half sounds quite tired of its familiar wail and the piano's flickering teardrops. One wonders whether Cave has lost his sense of humor. It seems as though Cave has written tunes like "Still In Love" or "Rock of Gibraltar" so many times before that they sound about as fresh as bricks of clay in the sun this time around, while "She Passed By My Window," with its bland, fluttering percussion and dull piano, comes across with little more life than a concrete wall. Even Cave's lyrics, usually as intelligent and biting as the best of his contemporaries, fall flat and stale here, as in these tired lines from "Rock of Gibraltar": "Let me say this to you/I'll be steadfast and true/And my love will never falter" and "You'd stand by me/And together we'd be/That great, steady Rock of Gibraltar." This is hardly the writing one would expect from a man who has published several books of verse. Similarly, what might have served as an album-resurrecting stomp in the epic "Babe, I'm on Fire" sounds like a shelved outtake from Murder Ballads -- perhaps the less-realized counterpart to "O'Malley's Bar" -- that still hasn't quite shaken off the dust of years. More ambitious than accessible, the song carries on far too long (the lyrics comprise four pages of the album's liner notes), becoming a monotonous and jarring onslaught of noise. Nonetheless, Nocturama demonstrates that, even in
his less inspired moments, Nick Cave's commitment to
authenticity and poetry remains a beacon shimmering in the
darkness of pop music's bleak landscape. "It's a wonderful
life/If you can find it," the dour, baritone comic quips on
Nocturama's fabulous opening track, "Wonderful life,"
his haunted piano bemoaning the illusion of happiness. If FM
radio still turns the other cheek to the music of Nick Cave
and The Bad Seeds, it stands as a tribute to the group's
enduring authenticity. And that is something that even Cave
can be happy about. | April 2003 |
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