Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: reissues

Let Love In, Murder Ballads, The Boatman’s Call, No More Shall We Part

6034001cLet’s be honest, Mute’s third set of Bad Seeds’ reissues is the one we’ve been a-waiting for.

As great as the previous seven albums undoubtedly are, the real red meat of the matter is in these beautifully presented collector’s editions.

Let Love In, from 1994, is a terse summation of everything they’d done before – from ragged punk blues to gospel-tinged rock ’n’ roll and gothic balladry.

Cave’s lyrics are fiery, funny and literate, while the band’s playing is routinely brilliant, never more so than on the deadly Do You Love Me? and the tortured sympathy of Nobody’s Baby Now; while the chilling Paradise Lost imagery on Red Right Hand should freeze the marrow.

But it’s the 1996 follow up, Murder Ballads, that continues to excite fans and thrill newcomers. An unflinching account of the human soul in torment, the protagonists of its songs fight, flounder, fall in love and forget all reason to fulfill their lust as they savage their demons under the noses of God and the Devil. One of them even quotes Milton; while Polly Harvey (on Henry Lee) and Kylie Minogue (Where the Will Roses Grow) prove devilish duettists for Cave’s visceral visions.

If that’s all bit rich for your tastes, try The Boatman’s Call, with its piercing set list inspired by Cave’s break-up with Polly Harvey. Dignified, redemptive, spiritual, songs like the exquisite Into My Arms and Brompton Oratory, with its religious undertones, are damned-near perfect.

The under-rated, but no less brilliant No More Shall We Part would be the pinnacle of lesser careers, but is just another highlight of Cave’s. Love, loss and God inform throughout as on the sprawling, but fat-free, ballad No More Shall We Part.

All four albums come with videos, extra tracks, exhaustive sleeve notes and telling talking head making-of films.

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