Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - 'God Is In The House' (Mute)
4/5
By: Toby L
Cave has remained a tough one to rival over the years. Not merely content with the notion of being ruthlessly prolific in the way of record-releases (twelve studio-albums to his name since the 80s, prior to which his role within The Birthday Party spawned yet more timeless matter), his live-shows with The Bad Seeds have become the stuff of legend - more often than not, a very seriously intense hour and a half of undiluted epic-haunt-classical-rock... Elegant, yet simultaneously tinged with an underbelly of the sinister.
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Unsurprisingly, 'God Is In The House' - principally catering for a live-performance, as recorded at Le Transbordeur, Lyon, 2001 - provides yet more of what we've come to expect - towering infernos of outlandish, airy arrangements, executed lavishly and tempestuously by a full, eight-piece line-up, with occasional special-guests.
From the lurching entrance of a pulsating 'Do You Love Me?', the set proves gripping, proceeding via a timeless, classic 'Oh My Lord', bassy groove of 'Red Right Hand' and the piano-hammering minimalism of 'As I Sat Sadly By Her Side'. Nick Cave gyrates throughout, waving limbs like a desperate preacherman, the cigarette-smoke seeming suffocating.
Additional highlights: the stricken tragedy of 'The Weeping Song'; ragged, rabid acoustic scratchings of an up-tempo, boisterous 'Papa Won't Leave You, Henry'; downbeat, sombre trappings of an engrossing, intimate 'Into My Arms'; an outing of first ever 'Seeds' composition, 'Saint Huck'; and a teeming, gigantic close via 'The Curse of Millhaven'.
As if the main-event weren't enough, a lo-fi documentary-insight into the recording-process of '01's 'No More Shall We Part' seems downright insightful; Cave reclining on a leather-sofa amidst the control-room of Abbey Road's legendary Studio Two exchanging idle banter, and tutting with anguish when he conducts an array of recording f**k-ups.
Further extras supplied via the John Hillcoat-produced promo-flicks for 'As I Sat...', the really rather enthralling 'Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow' (complete with cameos from the likes of a hamming-it-up Jarvis Cocker and ageing Jason Donovan amidst amusing dance-routines) and Tony Mahony-directed 'Love Letter'.
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A masterly production, the live-show of Lyon is formidable - stark, bizarrely-angled cameras, capturing the full fervour of the band's dynamic and cohesive group spirit, whether eccentric violinist Warren Ellis' defiant leg-thrusts or Conway Savage's ever-understated keys-performance, the tightness of the show is rounded and made the more vivid via a cutting, yet rich, defined aural-split.
A diligent package - beyond two hours and a quarter of essential Bad Seeds viewing - 'God Is In The House' may not prove the existence of an external-world creator as denoted in the title. But it does display yet more hard evidence of the often, un-human genius of Cave's tireless creative output.
Artists in this article: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
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