Nick Cave
Abattoir / The Lyre of Orpheus
(Mute)
When it comes to shock rock, there's not much that compares to Nick Cave. With a two decade-long career behind him of making songs that tackle the entire spectrum of human depravity, he puts Marilyn Manson and all of his costume-wearing contemporaries to shame. What makes Nick Cave extraordinary is how he wraps his songs in an often pretty, always mystical atmosphere, coupled with chilling, almost insane-sounding vocals that growl of god and the devil, and just about everything in between. Cave's career hit both it's highest and lowest points within the last decade; 1994's Let Love In was a slice of pure genius, while last year's Nocturama was just plain boring. Thankfully, he has now resurfaced with the excellent double album set Abattoir Blues/ Lyre Of Orpheus.
Abattoir Blues (Abattoir means slaughterhouse) starts out with the sarcastic \Get Ready For Love"" which finds Cave maniacally proclaiming ""Get Ready For Love! Praise Him till you've forgotten what you're praising him for, then praise Him a little more."" Religion has always been a fixation of his; most songs suggest that he doesn't know quite what to make of it however. The following track finds Cave unveiling a new topic: Cannibalism! ""If you're gonna dine with the cannibals / Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten,"" he tenderly sings on ""Cannibal's Hymn."" Hopefully, its a metaphor.
As with all of Nick Cave's work, the songs here are generally very lyrically rich, full of metaphors and complex emotion. There are also little jokes that serve to lighten the mood: ""I woke up this morning with a Frappucino in my hand.""
Both Abattoir's climax and its finest moment come with ""There She Goes, My Beautiful world."" The frenetic piano and guitar heat up to the killer chorus, where the gospel choir, featured throughout the album, joins in making it wild and profoundly engaging. This flawlessly leads into U2-flavored ""Nature Boy"": ""I saw some ordinary slaughter / I saw some routine atrocity / My father said don't look away...In the end it is beauty that is going to save the world."" Nick Cave constanly juxposes beauty and ugliness
The Lyre Of Orpheus is a less instrumentally dramatic affair. Many of the songs are more acoustic and sparse, and put more of an emphasis on beauty. The love song ""Breathless"" is an innocent tale of going down to a stream with a woman that everybody- forest animals included-are breathless over. This is perhaps the matured rethinking of ""The Wild Rose,"" off 1996's Murder Ballads, where Cave brings a beautiful woman (sung by Kylie Minogue) down to a river only to kill her. The final track, ""O Children,"" seems to be an apology to children who can't conceive what the adults are doing, as Nick Cave murmurs ""pass me that lovely little gun.""
When all is said and done, Nick Cave has crafted 17 mesmerizing tracks masterfully encompassing love and hate, innocence and evil, longing and regret. These topics are nothing groundbreaking for him, but the addition of the choir adds a new spiritual element that serves the subject matter well. Abattoir Blues / Lyre Of Orpheus is an ambitious work that ultimately brings us closer into Nick Cave's demented, dark world.
