STACK #151 May 2017

FEATURE MUSIC

PRESENT), etc. It's a vivid reminder of Cave's personal evolution, as much as anything strictly musical. Opening side C, the eight- minute slo-mo spiritual collapse of Higgs Boson Blues ties itself to a specific point in his life, the baffled journeyman grappling with particle physics and Miley Cyrus in a world beyond the old understanding. Popping up at the end of the side in Where The Wild Roses Grow ,

Kylie Minogue is already part of the classical canon by comparison. More hits? Side D is the one most likely to garner the largest number of pops and crackles, neatly split between the stoic spirituals Into My Arms and Love Letter and murderous flashbacks to the creep and clamour of old in Red Right Hand and The Mercy Seat . Still a cornerstone of Cave's concerts, the stark divide between earnest prayers and bloody rampage is reiterated on the last record: The Ship Song cropping up on Side E and Stagger Lee closing side F with what is surely the most comically obscene bloodbath ever staged outside of the gangsta rap genre. But it's the accumulated weight, wisdom and despair of all that history that drives this collection home. "Pass me that lovely little gun/ My dear, my darling one," begins the choral epic, O Children . "Forgive us now for what we've done/ it started out as a bit of fun." Side F's Jubilee Street , Nature Boy and We No Who U R are all cut from the same anxious cloth of 21st century resignation, the older man's voice sinking deeper behind the living room curtains as the full realisation of its transience hits home. It hardly needs to be said, but even wrapped in an embossed mauve greeting-card cover, it's every bit as commanding here as it was in the blood and thunder of another life.

With a tracklist compiled by Nick Cave and original Bad Seed Mick Harvey, and aided by the current Bad Seeds, Lovely Creatures is a comprehensive look into 30 years of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds ' epic oeuvre of work. Available in standard CD, triple LP, Deluxe 3CD with DVD (featuring rare and unseen footage) and Super Deluxe Limited Edition Package, which includes the DVD and a hardcover book featuring personal memorabilia and photographs and a series of original essays, here Michael Dwyer investigates the gorgeous vinyl offering.

F irst, let’s put the unpleasantness behind us. "There's a devil waiting outside your door" on track one, side A of this six-sided retrospective of the Bad Seeds' first 30 years. Guitars grate like rusty machinery and evil echoes hiss in the ditches as Loverman grunts and grovels towards some unspeakable violation in a chorus of shearing metal plates. smack between the monochordal catharses of Tupelo and From Her To Eternity : all rolling thunder and bone-jarring piano and guitars making like dry-retching demons and machine-guns. That was the old Nick Cave: the brat-poet king of Beelzebub's court howling bloody vengeance as he mutilates small animals in the teeming rain. He'll make a few slight returns before this 21-song stocktake is through, but it's the way the track listing messes with chronological expectations that The rest of the side places the hellfire go-go of Deanna

years and continents removed from the excoriating outsider blues-rock shambles of the Bad Seeds' London squat years. Just as suddenly, the quasi- Biblical tone and language jumps centuries in space-time to the dog- eat-dog urban American orgy of Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! , then to the sombre piano-vocal of People They Ain't No Good , po-faced churchy goodness to make Shrek weep. Found photos of 14 Bad Seeds are randomly arranged across the inner triple-gatefold, each with their respective dates of tenure. Anita Lane (1984). James Johnston (2004 – 2008). Conway Savage (1992 –

It's the accumulated weight, wisdom and despair of all that history that drives this collection home

makes it such a thrill-ride. All vibes and crooning, The Weeping Song ushers in side B like a whole other musical world, light-

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