NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS DIG, LAZARUS, DIG! ALBUM MUTE, EMI RELEASE: MARCH 3, 2008 REVIEW: FEBRUARY 18, 2008

There's a scene out of the movie "Reservior Dogs" where Laurence Tierney's character looks at his band of criminal miscreants and states "alright ramblers, let's get ramblin'". This is exactly what I thought when I got a copy of this record. After the warning signs on their last double album, the Grinderman releases revitalized the creative process of Nick and his bad bad seeds. Gone are the cascading almost hymnal influences; the foul stench of AM radio has been eradicated. What we have here is a Bad Seeds record which is decidedly lo-fi. The arrangements are stripped down, groovy little tunes with Nick being a very dirty man with his lyrics. I can see him in his suit strutting under the glare of studio monitors with their dials turned to eleven.

Another thing to note would be the experimental nature of some of the songs on "Dig, Lazurus, Dig!" namely "Night of the Lotus Eaters" and "More News from Nowhere". The Bad Seeds have not been this bare-bones and dare I say it, smacked out sounding, since their debut "From Her to Eternity". If this is the blues as interpreted by these boys then I want to hear them explore it further. That Blixa Bargeld was not involved in the recording of these two songs in particular surprises me, they have all the tension his contributions to the Bad Seeds ever conjured.

"Dig, Lazurus Dig" I find myself listening to once and then sitting in silence afterwards for a bit, digesting just how much it has shot out of my speakers. This is an intense record, dear readers. Nick has dropped his incessant need to write love songs and talk about his fatherhood, at last. His voice sounds lowered again, almost to a growl. Unsettling is a word I'd use to describe this new album. The contentedness of maturity has apparently not agreed with our Australian man of the word. He's on the loose again, everyone.

PETER MARKS

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