Customer Reviews

Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The prolific Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have been refining and revitalising their music for decades but have not reached the end of their inventiveness yet. Severely cutting back on the trademark wailing violin and spooky piano - and with a noticeable dearth of songs about dead girls - "Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!" is rockier and funnier than the "Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orheus" offering Abattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus.
That 2004 dazzling double opus would have left lesser bands gasping for creative oxygen, but their thirteenth studio LP rather suggested a band with limitless artistic energy and endurance.
There's a sense of fun here - not always a mainstay of the previous 13 Bad Seeds albums - but we're back to Cave the poet, Cave the laconic chronicler, and he's being a bit more flowery about the rude stuff.
With much of the energy of the grungier "Grinderman" project Grinderman Cave et al explored last year, "Dig" is stuffed with all the literary, biblical and mythological jumble fans can usually expect.
If there is a trademark Bad Seed sound, it is most apparent in "Jesus of the Moon", in which Cave's talent for emotive narrative is accompanied by elegant flute.
As verbose and intellectual as it is scary and unsettling, "Dig" is a baffling, dark masterpiece in which Cave deliberately sets out not to deliver the sweet tones of the piano or the guitar chords which massage the pleasure centres of the psyche.
Instead we get rock constantly verging on dissonance, with squalls of sound and numbing basslines.
There are few musicians, who have never had a major record deal, yet command an ever-growing audience and, at 50, are unleashing music with all the vigour and imagination of their youth.
Nick Cave turned out astonishingly primal garage-rock with last year's Grinderman album.
Here, back with the Bad Seeds, he veers wildly between grooviness, beauty and ear-splitting white noise.
The narratives he delivers are fantastically weird: on the title track, the biblical Lazarus returns from the dead in sleazy, pre-Giuliani New York.
The song brilliantly repositions the myth of Lazarus in the moral swamp of 1970s N.Y.; with the Bad Seeds coming on like the Stooges after a funk injection, while "Moonland" is a Taxi Driver narrative with a man behind the wheel in lonely rage. "Albert Goes West" is a report of a psychotic episode which manages to rhyme 'vulva' with 'sucking a revolver'.
"We Call Upon the Author" is Cave addressing God, and chiding those who ask him to explain his songs. "I go guruing down the street", he wails, "Young people gather round my feet/Ask me things - but I don't know where to start".
Even when the maudlin "Hold On To Yourself" provides something musically straightforward - a theme which would not go amiss on the soundtrack to a spaghetti western - there is a din going on in the background which sounds like a colony of agitated bats.
Then listen to "Night Of The Lotus Eaters" and you have a clatttery blues riff around which there are guitar sounds which spookily resemble a creaking door. And then there is "Lie Down Here", whose intro sounds like a man involved in a fight to the death with feedback. This is one mean, ornery album. But it is not in the mould of the primeval Grinderman project.
It's much cleverer than that. "Dig" is, by Cave's own testimony, more expansive, teasing us with glimpses of psychedelia. You could draw comparisons as diverse as Tom Waits and The Fall, but "Dig" is simply great on its own terms.
It is a confident album by musicians who are not simply singing the songs they know will sell and it is an interesting, exciting and often irreverent offering. Adult, funny, packed with Freudian allusion and apocalyptic dread, it really is magnificent stuff.
Download : "We Call Upon the Author", "Midnight Man" and "Jesus On The Moon".

Before the release of Grinderman, I remember getting all excited reading that Nick Cave was coming out with hard rocking album. Unfortunately, the CD didn't live up to my expectations, it struck me as more of a throwaway than a committed project. But at least I didn't have long to wait for the real goods. Dig Lazarus Dig is everything I had been hoping for in a rocking Nick Cave release, full-fledged songs, fun yet biting lyrics, a diversity of musical styles, moments of pensiveness and beauty, and oh yeah, it really really jams. Welcome back, Nick!

I don't understand why some reviewers are knocking this album. This, to me, is not the sound of Nick Cave in a rut, this is the sound of Nick and the Bad Seeds revitalized. We all love Nick Cave the twisted balladeer, the lounge singer with the dark tortured soul of an Ingmar Bergman, the pensive Nick Cave of The Good Son, Murder Ballads, The Boatman's Call, No More Shall We Part and The Lyre of Orpheus/Abbatoir Blues, but staying in that same mode ad infinitum would have constituted the true rut. It was time for a change, and Lazarus indicates a deviation in focus I ardently applaud, even if it turns out to be for one album only. Nick's characteristic snarl is still here, but he seems to be having more fun this time around. Does that make some of the lyrics less deep than what we're accustomed to? Maybe, but that doesn't mean they're not every bit as intelligent and literate and black as before. Nick has opted for a more absurdist lyrical style on several of the songs, going off on bizarre tangents while spinning his characteristically sardonic narratives, and frankly I'm not always sure what the hell he's singing about, but the results are damned entertaining nonetheless. As for the musical element, I like the sound of Nick Cave cutting loose. This might be the closest thing to a party album that Nick and the Bad Seeds ever release, and it is appropriately raunchy, but that doesn't make it negligible. The title song which opens the album, and We Call Upon the Author, positioned directly at the middle, and the closing More News From Nowhere are the key tracks here, setting the mood of theater of the absurd spontaneity, but they aren't necessarily the strongest. This is a hook-laden album, with Nick's pop sensibilities in full swing. In addition to those three songs, I really love Today's Lesson, Hold On To Yourself, Lie Down Here(& Be My Girl) and Midnight Man. Besides its melodic invention and lyrical, flamboyance, Lazarus has the added advantage of being far from a one note adventure; musical ideas abound. Night of the Lotus Eaters employs what sounds like a steel drum, Hold On To Yourself and Jesus Of the Moon are beautiful ballads in the tradition of his more recent albums, but with some musical twists(Hold On has a distinctly western twang), and Lie Down Here is a barroom sizzler, the kind of all out assault Nick and the boys haven't done for a while(not counting Grinderman), with an irresistible melody and a propulsive performance by the band. Lazarus might be Nick's most American album, with its nods to American music and its darkly comic examinations of American celebrity and culture.

Some may argue with Nick's change in direction, I find it exhilarating. To the naysayers, criticize this album if you must, but please don't accuse Nick Cave of getting stale. For me this album is a refreshing change of pace, with the emphasis on fresh.

Evidently reinvigorated by his mid-life-crisis stint in punk-rock incarnation Grinderman, Nick Cave returns with Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! - a thrilling, sprawling album.
Its themes of sex, death and religion, and its cast of strange shadowy creatures occupying a rich and looming musical landscape are familiar, but there is definitely a new energy at play.
The magnificent "Jesus of the Moon" - one of several tracks where Cave trades his preacher-man delivery for that of a storyteller - is among the finest moments of his career, and there's much more to rave about besides. Now 50 and no longer the menacing figure he was during the decades he maintained a heroin habit, Nick Cave has become a prodigious artist(responsible for soundtracks, screenplays and essays as well as his solo material) who ranks alongside the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits.
The backdrops to these narratives and speculations range from churning rock'n'roll vamps, barrages of distorted guitar noise and hypnotic chants, to the shimmering mandolin and viola, caressed with tender breaths of flute, that multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis conjures up for the beautiful "Jesus of the Moon".
There's more than enough on here - the wonderfully morbid lyrics, the almost animal guitar sounds and, of course, that voice - to savour.
"Jesus of the Moon" has some of the Bad Seeds signature sound.
The track would fit in better on "The Good Son" than it does surrounded by rock 'n' roll tunes like the title song.
"Night of the Lotus Eaters" has a distinctive Grinderman feel and "More News From Nowhere" more obviously presents the band's earlier musical characteristics.
"Dig" is a confident album by musicians who are not simply singing the songs they know will sell and it is an interesting, exciting and often irreverent offering.
My favourute tracks are : "Jesus of the Moon", "We Call Upon the Author", "More News From Nowhere", "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!", and "Today's Lesson".

Nick Cave has been an outstanding musician for decades. Although he has written amazing songs throughout the years, he has not yet achieved great success (his albums on the top 10). Even though what I know of him, he'd probably prefer it that way, to not be in the mainstream of the rock world (you know being classified as commercial). This release of Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is considerably one of his best. It's released after he took time off to work with his side project Grinderman last year then returned and recorded this album.

Whatever he did, like getting out other frustrations with Grinderman, worked because this album contains fierce hard driving rock tunes with dirty blues mixed in. He has a song "Jesus Of The Moon" that is a more mellow piano style track and the title track that hits you with it's pounding drums and then there's "Moonland" that has a more funk sorta vibe to it. Overall this is a great album with strong interesting songs.

Perhaps re-energized by the Grinderman project, this album finds Nick Cave and company picking up the pace a bit from the last few Bad Seeds albums.

I disagree with the (semi) negative reviews. I appreciate the fact that he mixed things up a bit and think the song-writing and lyrics are still top notch.

Can't wait for the tour!

The strongest effort so far by Nick and Seeds. Every song is an A++ winner - 'More News From Nowhere' has got the best bass line I've heard a hell of a long time (Grinderman's 'No Pussy Blues' bass line ain't too shabby, neither). I've had DIG!!! on my iPod since I bought it and haven't taken it off since - that's 3 years. GREAT STUFF..

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds have just released the best record of 2008, their first in nearly four years. Dig!!!Lazurus!!!Dig!!! is number fourteen in their canon and though some of Nick's albums tend to be a bit uneven, albeit brilliant in a scattered kind of way, this new release captures him and The Bad Seeds at their mature, informed best. This is undoubtedly one of their most cohesive, coherent, and beautifully engineered albums yet. But don't think for a minute that this one doesn't rock. Just because Nick recently turned 50, time hasn't slowed him or his bandmates. Drawing upon the raw energy of last year's raucous Grinderman collaboration seems to have infused the Bad Seeds with a power and freedom not seen in years; not seen, in fact since 1994's Let Love In. From the opening title track Dig Lazarus Dig with its irresistible, insistent beat until the smooth groove of the finale More News From Nowhere, there isn't a weak song, not even a weak moment to be found. I must make special mention of the beseeching scorcher We Call Upon The Author, undoubtedly the album's apogee, and of a personal favorite Lie Down Here, a throwback sound to the mid 60's with a screeching lead guitar with The Bad Seeds providing vocal support behind Nick's snarling lead. I could go on mentioning individual cuts that stand out-all but a couple are immediate grabbers- but the whole of the project sustains and creates a dark, irreverent mood that is simultaneously loud, exciting, and full of unexpected turns. Amid some of the album's reined in and controlled ambient noise there is a dark humor loosed, certifying that Nick Cave more than understands the world we live in, and like a prophet he undermines America's cultural landscape while exploring its soundscapes. In short,... prolix, prolix, nothing a pair of scissors can't fix...this a masterwork. It goes almost without saying that Nick Cave is at the the top of his game now: 2 successful albums in successive years, a second novel on the way, upcoming tours with both of his groups, great soundtrack work with scores for Andrew Dominic and John Hillcoat films. To quote a line from the second track Today's Lesson, "We're Gonna Have A Real Cool Time Tonight..." Listening to this new CD, I can assure you, we most certainly shall.

just got home from his show at the 930 club....when an artist's new songs are as good as his classics live you know you are onto something...best album of 2008 so far...

I have to admit that I wasn't impressed the first time I heard this album. I liked the title track well enough, and I enjoyed News From Nowhere, but none of the others impressed me. Every time I listened to the album it grew on me, one song at a time. Now I can't stop listening to it- I absolutely love Jesus of the Moon, Hold on to Yourself, and Lie Down Here. It's one of my favorite albums.

I don't think Cave and the Bad Seeds can top this. but then I didn't think he could top his last double album. This album is psychological, literary and biblical and sounds great. There some very good reviews here on Amazon and I can't add anything new.

If you know Cave's music you better own this.