Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues

No punk rock forefather has aged as gracefully as Nick Cave. A quarter-century after he first started kicking against the pricks with the Birthday Party, pop culture’s Other Man in Black has lost none of his creative drive. Always prolific, Cave has outdone himself here with a hyper-ambitious double-disc set, each disc having its own title.

The piano ballads that have marked his most recent outings are thankfully kept to a minimum, the guitars are frequently ramped up, and the lyrics are among the most darkly poetic of his career. Cave has been at it so long that no one should expect greatness at this point. What a shock, then, that he delivers just that.

Abattoir Blues is the noisier of the two albums, with the raven-haired singer and his longtime backing band the Bad Seeds hell-bent on keeping things uptempo. Sounding pissed off and hungry for blood, Cave is at his most remorseless on “Hiding All Away”, a six-and-a-half-minute epic in which his lover ends up shot full of Pethidine, smashed in the skull with a judge’s gavel, and stuffed into an oven. No less captivating is the battle hymn “Get Ready For Love”, which reimagines southern gospel for the post-goth set. Elsewhere, the tombstone-blues sleeper “Messiah Ward” finds Cave taking a front seat for a ceremonial bringing out of the dead, and “Cannibal’s Hymn” makes a touching love song despite all the trashcan clang and clatter.

The Lyre Of Orpheus starts out with a Tom Waits-like stagger (the beautifully black title track) but quickly quiets down. “Breathless” serves up pop at its most pleasantly pastoral, “Carry Me” is a spiritual anti-ballad uplifting enough to turn heathens into believers, and the exotically hypnotic “Spell” sounds like 5 a.m. at a Turkish opium den. Cave’s greatest trick comes at the end of the album: Backed by the London Community Gospel Choir on “O Children”, he somehow manages to make ancient lyrics such as “I once was once blind but now I see” seem fresh. When he goes on to sing “Lift up your voice children/Rejoice, rejoice,” there’s really no need. Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus is such a joy that anyone who’s ever been remotely interested in his work will already have had at least a half-dozen epiphanies.