Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - 'Abattoir Blues' / 'The Lyre Of Orpheus' (Mute)
4/5
By: Toby L
The double-album. Typically, the cause of decline for most - in retrospect, did The Smashing Pumpkins' 'Mellon Collie...' truly merit a two-disc set? - while, for others, it's just part of the expanse; Guns 'N' Roses' decision to unleash two double-LPs on the same day - 'Use Your Illusion 1 & 2' - was possibly the most terrifying historic event in living-memory.
Yet there's some solace to be found when tireless, prolific veterans are exploiting the medium. Cave won't fail. Across his multi-decade career, he's still yet to really throw a curveball and chuck our way a true stinker. Considering his rumoured age of 112 as well, that's some yardstick.
Besides, 'Abattoir Blues' / 'The Lyre Of Orpheus' is more like a really f**king long record rather than two distinct ones, no matter the trickery and spin of the packaging. Immediately, the former is the most appealing - there's some classic Nicky boy herein; the thrilling, compulsive, drama of 'Get Ready For Love' works masterfully as the exhausting opener, not at all unlike the haunting mania of his classic 'Do You Love Me?', whilst 'Cannibal's Hymn' maintains the nihilism (not forgetting that noble chestnut, 'Well, if you're gonna dine with the cannibals... Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten.').
'Messiah Ward' breaks the pace sublimely, a more controlled, coordinated effort, its following 'There She Goes, My Beautiful World', meanwhile, a fantastical slice of bonkers gospel, complete with an ample decking of hearty-throated backing-singers and a frustrated tirade of the torturous deeds that defined public figures (Marx, Dylan Thomas and Philip Larkin - you're all given a blaring). Ensuing recent single 'Nature Boy', in contrast, is considerably easygoing, amusingly like The Divine Comedy in both pace and instrumental stature, and the first-set closer 'Fable Of The Brown Ape' is more timeless Cave narrative, sated with stories of rodent-eating. So far, so grand.
Immediately, 'The Lyre Of Orpheus' rears itself as the quirky, downbeat off-cuts that didn't gel with the bluster of 'AB' - the opening Waits clunk and stomp of the title-track is awkward and restive, 'Breathless' features random flute action and folk sparseness and 'Babe, You Turn Me On' is a campfire tale of spoken-word declaration. Elsewhere, 'Easy Money' graces the prior blend with foraying strings and stark Bad Seeds classicism, as beautiful as it is recurring, 'Supernaturally' is a piano-hammering waltz, 'Spell' is smoky, bass-encumbered storytelling, and 'O Children' is an easing, if morbid, choir-endowed apology.
More a record in two parts than the conceptual 'separate' albums it alludes to, with their combined latest, Cave and The Bad Seeds have continued one of the most fruitful, genuinely inspiring and starkly original recording legacies of all-time without once proving hackneyed or predictable. Coupled with the ingenuity of compelling, film-like arrangements and lyrical prowess that persists to enchant, the group's statuesque relevance still flippantly overshadows a whole plethora of the 'true greats' still parading these crumbling, uncertain shores.
Artists in this article: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
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