It’s safe to say that no one makes music quite like Nick Cave. Be it his early work with the Birthday Party, his longtime collaborators the Bad Seeds or last year’s Grinderman experiment, few have pushed the limits of conventional rock quite like Cave has. His latest project finds him teaming up with the Bad Seeds for their 14th studio album, a modern interpretation of the biblical story of Lazarus of Bethany, titled Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
One year ago, Nick Cave brought the world Grinderman, in which he and members of the Bad Seeds channel the likes of the Stooges in a garage-rock masterpiece praised by both critics and fans. Like a lingering hangover, the garage-soaked attitude of Grinderman spills onto the album’s first song, the title track “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!” Cave begins his narrative introducing the character “Larry,” who is resurrected into a dizzying journey through modern America’s metropolises and the vices associated with them.
From there, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds weave through songs like a perfectly oiled machine as Cave spouts off stories of love and loss interspersed between harrowing organ solos and smoky guitar licks.
Track three, “Moonland,” finds the band secured in a mellow groove, carried for the duration of the song by Bad Seed Martyn Casey’s bass line. The album’s next track finds Cave returning to Birthday Party-era gloom with the minimalist spacey tune “Night of the Lotus Eaters.”
One of Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!‘s crowning moments occurs when the character in the story becomes oversaturated with urban decay in the tale of confusion “We Call Upon the Author to Explain.” The immediacy and hopelessness in Cave’s voice as he sounds off about his city’s problems is a haunting portrait of anyone currently being crushed by the “American dream.”
Up next is “Hold on to Yourself,” which brings about the return of Nick Cave’s trademark croon last heard on 2002’s No More Shall We Part. The somber atmosphere of “Hold on to Yourself” gives way to the fast tempo of “Lie Down Here (& Be My Girl).” As Cave and Bad Seed Warren Ellis layer the song with guitar and piano exchanges, the Bad Seeds sing backup in the album’s most infectious tune.
On the 10th song, “Jesus of The Moon,” Cave straps on the guitar for the first time since Grinderman. In addition, the song delivers one of the best lyrics found on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! with the line, “People often talk about being scared of change/ But for me I’m more afraid of things staying the same.”
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! comes to a close with the posturing number “Midnight Man” before concluding with the meandering “More News From Nowhere.” Clocking in almost at the eight-minute mark, “More News From Nowhere” finds the story’s character seemingly accepting the limitations of the modern era while simultaneously resigning to the downward spiral that is his ultimate fate. In short, it is the perfect exclamation point (or three) on a story that was doomed from its onset.
The latest release from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is not only a perfect retrospect of all the facets of Nick Cave’s musical career; it is 2008’s first truly great release. The greatest success of Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is that it can be listened to both as a concept album complete with narrative or just as a collection of good tunes, with neither compromising the integrity of the music. That fact, coupled with the musical cohesiveness of the Bad Seeds, makes Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! worthy of resurrection should it someday meet an untimely end.
41/2 stars out of 5
