New Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!"
Nick Cave received plenty of well-deserved accolades for Grinderman in '07 -- ah, that creepy mustache, that creepier monkey -- and '08 shows no let-up. Walking from behind that other moniker, Cave & The Bad Seeds' fourteenth studio album Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is out in a couple months. You can stream the emphatic, eponymous first single at the official site (once you get there, look to the right and click). We mentioned Cave was in definite preacher mode for "No Pussy Blues," but this gets Biblical in a different fashion, while remaining suitably grinding. Once you click on the link, hang around awhile to read the track list, see what the Ouija spells, and pay attention to the lyrics. Or, if you wanna crib, read Cave's two cents on the track's meaning after the jump. Kick it, Nick.
[Photo by Steve Gullick]
Via The Seeds's site:
Ever since I can remember hearing the Lazarus story, when I was a kid, you know, back in church, I was disturbed and worried by it. Traumatized, actually. We are all, of course, in awe of the greatest of Christ's miracles - raising a man from the dead - but I couldn't help but wonder how Lazarus felt about it. As a child it gave me the creeps, to be honest. I've taken Lazarus and stuck him in New York City, in order to give the song, a hip, contemporary feel. I was also thinking about Harry Houdini who spent a lot of his life trying to debunk the spiritualists who were cashing in on the bereaved. He believed there was nothing going on beyond the grave. He was the second greatest escapologist, Harry was, Lazarus, of course, being the greatest. I wanted to create a kind of vehicle, a medium, for Houdini to speak to us if he so desires, you know, from beyond the grave. Sometimes, late at night, if you listen to the song hard enough, you can hear his voice and the sad clanking of his chains. "I don't know what it is but there is definitely something going on upstairs", he seems to be saying. It is, most of all, an elegy to the New York City of the 70's.Pretty great. Gotta go listen to "The Mercy Seat" now.
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is out 3/8 in the UK on Mute and 4/8 in the US on Anti-.
Posted at 5:28 PM
Tags: Nick Cave
Awesome. Not that The Boatman's Call and No More Shall We Part weren't great and all, but I'm glad to see Nick Cave and company going deeper into the cracked-out gospel sound of the first half of Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.
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Love, love, LOVE Nick Cave. Can't wait for this album to drop.
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Nick Cave is ooozes greatness from all of his pores. Other than Nocturama, has he ever really did any wrong?
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Great song! Those bad seeds are some serious stuff! Amazing design of their website as well. Pretty moody.
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Nocturama was wrong? I love that record.
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The Quality of this band is astounding. Mining deeper and deeper into the great myths of the west, biblical and classical and in our faces! But everything spans the eons in shuddering, powerful passion. Terrifyingly sleazy. poignantly beautiful and sickly funny, Cave and the seeds are all that is great about modern music and everyone should hear the word!!
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