Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Album Review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - From Her To Eternity


Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released their first album in 1984.  It opens with a demonic version of Leonard Cohen’s Avalanche.  Cave’s vocal delivery is absolutely threatening as he growls out the lyrics: “do not dreeiiisss in those raaagggs fo me, I know you are not poor” as Mick Harvey thunders away on slamming drum fills.

The rest of the album is largely made up of demented romps like Cabin Fever and Saint Huck, featuring feral grunts, guttural yelps and yowling Stooges-style by Nick Cave, while the instruments clank and growl away in the ether.  Better is Well of Misery, a vibraphone-clad call-and-response death march, to the sound of what sounds like the lashes of a whip.  The final track, A Box For Black Paul, is a lengthy doom-laden bluesy ballad featuring almost Bowie-esque piano.  It lasts over nine and a half minutes and is a very early version of a style he would patent on later albums.

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