Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! finds Nick Cave back at the helm of his long-term band The Bad Seeds after some impressive soundtrack work--2005's The Assassination of Jesse James--and a busman's holiday in the raw, rocking Grinderman. As the title suggests, Lazarus finds Cave returning to familiar themes of God and redemption, although some of the raw poise and wild-eyed humour that resurfaced in Grinderman remains: take the opening title track, which retells the Biblical story of the resurrection of Lazarus as transposed onto the sleazy, poverty-stricken backdrop of modern-day New York City. Musically, the likes of "Moonland" and "Night of the Lotus Eaters" have a swampy feel, all skittering drums, simmering bass and smoky organ riffs; elsewhere, there are rockers that tie on dissonant guitars without losing their dissonant touch ("Lie Down Here"). Probably the album highlight comes with "We Call Upon the Author", a sprawling, "Sister Ray"-like chugger that shows off Cave's skill for magnificent, sung-shouted narratives: "Now mixamatoid kids roam the streets, we've shunned them from the greasy grind/The poor little things, they look so sad and old as they mount us from behind". --Louis Pattison

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-08-11 rating:
Resurrection Joe
To say Nick Cave isn't the force he once was, is like saying Vlad the Impaler had minor anger management issues. Glories LONG gone, he's resorting to loose balladeering and conventional rock in a vain and desperate attempt to disguise the fact he's got nothing new to say and should've given up on this music thing a long time ago.
A new Nick Cave album is cause for despair, where once it was cause for celebration. Ok, you can't go on re-living past triumphs (ask Morrissey) but the guy must have SOME of that early threat and purpose kicking around somewhere. Where's the gusto and urgency that drove classics like 'Nick the Stripper' or 'Mr Clarinet' ?
He's become a rock dullard, a pale imitation, a caricature of all he once meant.
He's got a hopeless band together. The keyboard player looks like Bob the Murderer off 'Twin Peaks' and the rest of them try ham-fistedly to be eccentric, playing at being rock misfits in a Beefheartian sense, but the sad drone of long departed inspiration means the sound is a resounding mis-fire.
Like a once-proud wild animal that's become old, and needing to be put out of it's misery, Cave is a sorry sight. He tries vainly; 'Jesus of the Moon' is appalling, melody-less and uninspired. 'Midnight Man' is unco-ordinated pseudo HM dreck, in dire need of some serious oomph and pazzaz. Each song is asleep on it's feet, and finally, laboriously, drag 'Dig!! Lazarus Dig!!' sorrowfully along to it's spiritless, uninteresting conclusion.
The spark's gone. It went a long time ago, and what we're left with is lazy MOR for the less discerning 'alternative' masses. Cave always seemed close to breaking point, never far from the loony-bin, and his music reeked of that creative morbid intensity. But he doesn't need his straight-jacket any more. He's a summer season, woolly jumper and fabric softener man now.
I bet he even does requests....

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review by: zaarin_2003 date: 2008-08-01 rating:
You should know what to expect
When I say you should know what to expect, you know what I mean. You know this album will be brilliant and you know it will sound like 'a Nick Cave album', in other words, Nick Cave sings on it and it sounds as emotive, dark, poetic and different as anything you've heard before...

it doesn't disappoint.

One comment I'd make is that the sounds of the more recent albums, including the beautiful ballads of the Boatmans Call and No More Shall We Part have, to a certain degree, changed direction towards the electric energy most recently seen with side project Grinderman.

If you're a fan of his more traditional Boatman's Call sound, you may be disappointed, although there's enough variation here to please everyone. If you're more sane and love everything he does equally, you'll love it.

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review by: dazza from glasgow date: 2008-07-15 rating:
Rock Album Of The Year
I am 16 years old and have been a Nick Cave fan for 2 years and this has to be one of the best "prog rock" albums of all time. Cave is obviously a rather witty person and we here this with such lyrics as "spent the next seven years between her legs begging for my wife."The Bad Seeds play very well behind Nick Cave with Mick Harvey in great form on lead guitar and the wonderful warren ellis playing violin and such things leading the band on to Nick Cave's superb vocals on every song especially "We call upon the author" the complete stand out in a world class and all time classic rock album and the best and most mature of NC's career so far and long may it continue.

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review by: date: 2008-05-14 rating:
Believe the hype
For a band that has been around in one guise or another for over 25 years to produce a 14th studio album of this quality is nothing short of astounding. This is an album you can inhabit. Buy it and move in and you will find it a space of beauty, troubling images, humour, poetry and simply amazing songs.

Tunes which are catchy at the first listen bring you back for more. Then, the wonder sets in. Each song is not simply lovingly crafted but a shining jewel of perfection and each one different, offering something new. Usually, the scourge of the 'skip track' button on your HiFi leads to a truncated album of the 2 or 3 songs you actually like. Here, I only use the 'skip back' button, to listen to the track again and again. It is so rare to listen to an album all the way through, rarer still to listen over an over, without any tiredness creeping in.

This is destined to be the best album of the year and may even make it into the top 10 albums of all time. It is that good. The only thing that surpassed this album was seeing the great man and band live last week, knocking out these songs and wonders from the back catalogue. Unbelievable.

Oh and by the way, I'd never even played a Nick Cave album until a month ago, so I'm not a dyed in the wool fanatic.....


review by: jamesewan.com date: 2008-04-05 rating:
Fantastic!!! Nick Cave!!! Album!!! (8/10)
Nick Cave's fourteenth album finds him trading in the gothic romanticism of his previous work for a swampy, sleazy garage-rock-influenced sound. Taking some of its cues from Cave's recent 'Grinderman' side project and some of the wild border country atmospherics of his soundtrack work with Bad Seed Warren Ellis, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is markedly more upbeat but no more compromising for that. Murky and apocalyptic, the album features extended semi-spoken rants from Cave over spooked, often complex arrangements of angular guitars, organs, rattly percussion and ominous basslines.

There's something of Tom Waits or even Tricky about some of the ambience and arrangements, the Bad Seeds pulling out all the stops to create cinematic landscapes to Cave's own tales of brawlers, bawlers and bastards (to quote Waits). Cave is a singular talent seemingly liberated by some of his recent tangents, but the Seeds almost steal the show here, each track a little movie reel in itself. Those looking for the classic Cave ballad might be put off by Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!'s rawness of mood and mildly pornographic lyrics, but no-one can complain with songs as strong as 'Jesus Of The Moon' or 'Midnight Man'. It's not supposed to be like this, rock stars (or whatever you call someone like Nick Cave) aren't meant to hit career highs in their fifties, making some of their most innovative and evocative music fourteen albums in.

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