Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!!

Grinderman won’t go home; there’s still a riot going on

Last year’s Grinderman excursion, which saw Nick Cave, Jim Sclavunos, Warren Ellis and Martyn Casey in panting pursuit of wilful sonic carnage and lascivious whoopee, was a bloodletting triumph. Inevitably, this incendiary aural swagger hotwired the Bad Seeds, as Mick Harvey, James Johnston, Conway Savage and Thomas Wydler plugged into the creative surge, recording last summer at Richmond’s State Of The Ark studios with producer Nick Launay.

The group sounds absolutely comfortable in its skin, bouncing ideas around with mischievous relish, whether metronomic Velvets chug fed through Can’s blender on the uproarious We Call Upon The Author (where Cave deals with answering for his lyrics), Doorsy organ rush of Today’s Lesson, garage thrash of Albert Goes West or Debbie Harry’s Rush Rush littering More News From Nowhere. Cave’s lyrics are his sharpest, funniest yet, the hilarious title track planting the Biblical hero as instant celeb in modern New York over Louie Louie. Sclavunos describes the haunting dreamscape of Night Of The Lotus Eaters a emerging ‘from a spontaneous combustion of set ideas, group improvisation and an entirely serendipitous accident’, which nicely describes this glorious peak of the Bad Seeds’ mesmerising 24- year career.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Mute | CDSTUMM 277

Reviewed by Kris Needs
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