Albums by this artist

No More Shall We Part (2001)

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

No More Shall We Part

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» PIERO SCARUFFI | STAFF WRITER

Nick Cave No More Shall We Part Warner Bros., 2001 RiYL: Dirty Three, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits

Distracted in the past few years by several non-musical activities, Nick Cave returns to music four years after his last studio album with No More Shall We Part. The album is a collection of majestic piano-based elegies that push him further away from the bombastic and forceful style of The Good Son and towards the sparse and delicate style of Leonard Cohen. In a sense, it is the "feminine" and charitable soul of Cave that is slowly taking over his male and devilish side.

Even the voice is changing, from the emphatic call to arms of the preacher to the gentle croon of the gigolo. Mystery and tenderness permeate "As I Sat Sadly By Her Side" (sung in a decadent register that would be more appropriate to David Bowie or Bryan Ferry) and especially the love ballads "No More Shall We Part," "Love Letter," and "Sweetheart Come."

Paralleling his relocation from Jim Morrison's hell to Cohen's purgatory, Cave's approach to music is shifting from theatrical (haunting gothic tales like "Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow," thundering agonies like "The Sorrowful Wife," and gospel sermons like "Oh My Lord") to cinematic ("Darker With The Day" and "Hallelujah," a gripping, seven-minute parable of an artist aging alone, replete with mournful violin). As he reaches deeper and deeper into his soul, Cave's music is undergoing a linear transformation. As such, it's no surprise that the Bad Seeds can hardly be heard here. The McGarrigle Sisters and Warren Ellis provide most of the accompaniment that matters. Overall, it's possibly a step forward from The Boatman's Call, but far from being a return to form.

A word on the lyrics. We know that Cave is a master of disguise, and certainly one of the best rock poets ever. But his texts used to be also highly personal and that added pathos to pathos. Now his texts are mere affected mannerism, a virtuoso showing off his rare skills to a crowd of ecstatic peasants.

PIERO SCARUFFI | Piero Scaruffi runs the exhaustive music database Scaruffi.com. A native of Italy, he has also been praised for his work on the General Theory of Relativity, formal theories of the mind, and artificial intelligence. And no, we aren't making that up.