Album of the Week - Vol.15

Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS (2004)
Week: Mon 28th October to Sun 3rd November 2019
Format: CD/iPhone/iPod
Producer(s): Nick Launay and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Track listing:
Disc One - ABATTOIR BLUES
1. Get Ready For Love *
2. Cannibal's Hymn
3. Hiding All Away *
4. Messiah Ward *
5. There She Goes, My Beautiful World
6. Nature Boy
7. Abattoir Blues *
8. Let the Bells Ring
9. Fable of the Brown Ape
Disc Two - THE LYRE OF ORPHEUS
1. The Lyre of Orpheus
2. Breathless *
3. Babe, You Turn Me On *
4. Easy Money *
5. Supernaturally
6. Spell
7. Carry Me
8. O Children *
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 82:30

Turning fifteen at the start of 2019, this is the thirteenth offering from Messrs Cave & Bad Seeds and it's also their first double album. As with many double albums, it's a sprawling document of many moods, and some songs only seem to work within the context of the record. Having said that, this is one of my favourite long players from Nick and the lads, and it's also the album that gave me a bit of a push into delving a little deeper into the Cave. Pun absolutely intended.

While this has been presented as a double album made up of two separate records, I don't really hear a huge amount of difference between them. Some critics have remarked that The Lyre of Orpheus is a much mellower affair, but there's just as much gallop and swagger on offer, although maybe there's an extra ballad or two. For Abattoir Blues, drum duties went to long-serving Bad Seed and multi-instrumentalist Jim Sclavunos (before the formation of Grinderman) with the band's regular drummer Thomas Wylder handling The Lyre of Orpheus. Their different styles might be the main reason why some say there is a definite change of feel between the two albums. Sclavunos seems to go on the attack, while Wylder (who has been in the band since 1985) is little more restrained and subtle. Interestingly, Sclavunos would also drum on the irreverent Grinderman albums which would bookend Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!!, NC&tBS' excellent 2008 record. But to me, I don't see the two records as being that wildly varied from each other, and it comes across as a considered and well-constructed double album.

As is the case with most double albums, there is some filler here. And again, like most double albums, this possibly could have been whittled down a bit to make for a strong single disc. To me, the closing track of Abattoir Blues, Fable of the Brown Ape, sticks out like a sore thumb, as does the title track of The Lyre of Orpheus. In fact, the latter's menacing tone and dark subject matter is the main reason I can't see the second album as mellow. As a suggested step towards better listening, I would remove those two songs and bang, you've got an absolute cracker. Plus, Let The Bells Ring flows brilliantly into album highlight Breathless..and all the songs would fit on one disc!

The double record gets off to an absolutely ripping start with Get Ready For Love. Its immediacy slaps you in the face, and the joyous fervour of the lyrical delivery threatens some sort of religious conversion. While Cave and Co. utilised the wondrous vocals of Kate and Anna McGarrigle on 2001's No More Shall We Part, they employ a full female choir on most of this album; and the opening track has them at the forefront of the sound, not buried behind the music. While there is a lot of harmony blocks, there are occasional solos, soaring counter-melodies and on Hiding All Away, sinister giggles. For six female backup singers, they sound like a church full of gospel singers. The first four songs are all fantastic, with Sclavunos's drumming either thundering through the speakers or delivering the band to their destination at a fantastic gallop. 

Since joining The Bad Seeds in 1994, Warren Ellis' contribution to their albums has increased in importance exponentially. So much so that the inner sleeve photos on their new album Ghosteen only feature Cave and Ellis.The last three releases of the group have seen a reliance on Ellis' loops as well. His fingerprints are all over this double record, whether providing lovely and understated violin plucks on Babe, You Turn Me On or a jaunty intro on Let The Bells Ring, his ability to enrich the sound of The Bad Seeds is crucial. A good thing too, as this album was the first one the band recorded after the departure of longtime Bad Seed Blixa Bargeld, who had been in the fold since 1983. Thankfully, this record still benefits from the fantastic musicality of Mick Harvey, who would leave the group in 2009. Harvey had been Cave's right hand man since the early years of The Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party, and it's a role that Ellis appears to effortlessly slip in to after Harvey's exit. 

This album is also the first of two Bad Seeds releases to feature James Johnston on organ, and the wonderful late Conway Savage continues to handle piano duties. Ex-Triffids band member Martyn P. Casey wields his bass guitar deftly, and since joining the group in 1990 has been Wylder's constant in the rhythm section. Oh, except for Sclavunos' work on the first album of this set, of course! Casey's excellent playing can either be the heartbeat of a song, or can subtly underline the sound and feel. His bass part on 1997's wondrous Into My Arms almost goes unnoticed, but it's perfect.

Now, as I mentioned before, if you trim away Fable of the Brown Ape and The Lyre of Orpheus, you are left with a fantastic set of songs. The highlights are many, and the moods swing from whimsical ballad Breathless to cynical blues/rocker Abattoir Blues to the simmering dream pop of O Children. A lot of the tracks on this album rank among my favourites in the Cave catalog, and I was a little disappointed that nothing from here made the setlist for Distant Sky live concert film. But it was here that my passing interest in Cave's work took a firmer hold.

I've always struggled to enjoy the early years of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and it's not until the excellent Henry's Dream from 1992 that I really start to get into all that's on offer. I only acquired that record fairly recently, and it's the earliest NC&tBS outing where I can listen to every song, and for the most part, enjoy it. The first album of theirs I ever bought was 1996's Murder Ballads, and that was mainly out of curiosity. I really liked the early single Where The Wild Roses Grow with Kylie Minogue, but I was quite interested in the concept of a record entirely made up of songs of doomed relationships and murder most foul. While I liked some of the tracks instantly, others took years to really get under my skin. When The Boatman's Call was released the following year, and with it Into My Arms, I thought that there might be something worth delving into here. So, I got my hands on the 1998 The Best of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and left it at that for a good few years.

Not sure what possessed me to nab this double album, but it would have been a coupla years after its initial release. I think I had seen a documentary on ABC about Cave's songs and a few of them appealed to me. I was still buying JJJ's Hottest 100 CDs at the time too, and every year or so another NC&tBS track would pop up. I have a feeling I got No More Shall We Part at the same time as Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. Anyway, long story short, except for 2003's much derided (and defended) Nocturama album, I have all the CDs from Henry's Dream to Ghosteen. It was this double offering that really got it's hooks in me though. The astonishing power of that fab opening track Get Ready For Love, the whimsical pop of Breathless, the moody plod of Messiah Ward, the swirling desire of Babe, You Turn Me On; these are songs that I never tire of. I've had this album on my iPhone for years now, so I always have a copy with me. While there might be better records in Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' catalog, this was the one that landed me. 

A Murderous Anniversary

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released Murder Ballads on this day in 1996, and while it's not my favourite album of theirs, it does hold a special place in my heart. I had never really gotten into Nick Cave up until the time that the Where The Wild Roses Grow single with Kylie Minogue came out in late 1995. I quite liked the song, and I still like it, and it brought the band a lot of attention and gave Kylie some much needed street cred at the time. 

Shortly after the single's release I heard about the forthcoming album that would be made up entirely of songs about death and murder. Being a 19 year old fellow, I was quite morbidly curious about this idea. Having been vaguely familiar with Cave's work, I certainly didn't expect the Tell Laura I Love Her and Leader Of The Pack style of death anthem. 

The only Cave songs I really knew back then were The Ship Song and Do You Love Me? as they had been included on the first two Triple J Hottest 100 CDs. I'd seen snippets of clips of his time in The Birthday Party and some earlier clips with the Bad Seeds, but it didn't really blow my skirt up. But there something about Cave that was enticing to me. That deep voice, that menacing form and that dark, forbidding quality. 

Anyway, long story short, I bought Murder Ballads when it came out, and it was my first Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album. As I listen to it now, my impressions of it are still pretty quite similar to how I felt nineteen years ago. The concept is fantastic, and the moods created on all the tracks are suitably eerie. However, some of the songs just aren't engaging. I think the weakest tracks are the ones that don't present their story very clearly, namely Lovely Creature, Crow Jane and The Kindness Of Strangers. So, I find it a little hit-and-miss, pardon the pun. 

When they DO get it right though, it's downright unsettling. I think the album opener, Song Of Joy, does the best job of giving you chills, and Cave's performance is suitably unhinged. You feel as though he's talking directly to you through the speakers and the line between the song's narrator and murderer are nicely blurred.

The upbeat tempo and almost cartoon-like imagery of The Curse Of Millhaven is a big highlight for me too, and possibly my favourite track on the album. The repeated "La la la la/La la la lie" by the specially assembled group of backing vocalists (dubbed the Moron Tabernacle Choir) adds a fantastical element as well. 

Although it's a long listen at fourteen and a half minutes, O'Malley's Bar is great too, and probably the most graphic track, detailing the massacre of the patrons and staff at a tavern. Again, it's Cave's performance that lifts these songs out of the reach of the average singer because of his gothic theatricality. The Bad Seeds know how to create a sonic landscape that he can lay the words onto, and I couldn't think of another group to tackle such a concept. I have read in my travels this week, that the band tailored this album around O'Malley's Bar, because it was the only way the song could exist. I believe that to be true.

I love that Murder Ballads closes with Dylan's dirge-like Death Is Not The End, and that the guest vocalists and musicians contribute vocals to each verse. It strikes me as a whimsical epilogue that washes away the savagery of the previous tracks, and reminds you that it was all a musical dream. 

Getting back to why this LP is important to me, if I had not taken the plunge and bought it, I doubt I would have delved more into Cave's work. Aside from 2003's Nocturama, I have all the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds albums from Murder Ballads to 2013's excellent Push The Sky Away. I also have The Best Of compilation that was released in 1998. I am not much of a fan of their eighties material, but I love Deanna. I much prefer the live renditions of The Mercy Seat and From Her To Eternity that Cave performed in Fremantle last November too. I find tracks like Tupelo and The Carny quite menacing and difficult to enjoy. 

So, while I don't love Murder Ballads to death (badoom-tish!), I am grateful for its exist and the path it slowly lead me down. Without it, I may not have Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus in my favourite albums of all time list.