This is Nick Cave's best album so far. It's an eclectic mix of everything he's ever done - from the quiet balladry of "The Boatman's Call", to the Southern Gothic of "Your Funeral, My Trial", with some of the wretched angst of "From Her to Eternity" thrown in just for grins. All the songs here sound different, yet they're unified by the songwriting - stronger than pretty much anything Cave has done in the past.

It's also a rather personal album for me, too. On September 11, I was listening to it as I watched the miniature apocalypse we faced that day. Since then, the album's gloomy, yet ultimately redeeming sound has become paired in my mind with those events. Strange, but true - I never thought that music of such universal interest could become so personalized!

This album has, I daresay, one of Cave's most diverse lineups. It's got Cave himself, Conway Savage, Thomas Wydler, Mick Harvey, Martyn Casey, Jim Sclavunos, Warren Ellis (also worked with Cat Power and The Dirty Three), Blixa Bargeld (of Einsturzende Neubauten) and Kate and Anna McGarrigle. These last four are what make the album so unique. Ellis's violin adds a bare, exotic feel when it's slow, and a blistering screech when it's fast. Bargeld, I imagine, contributed some of the roaring pure noise that shows up occasionally - and the McGarrigle sisters, who first came to fame in the '70s with "Heart Like a Wheel" (sadly having more or less vanished since), add a touch of literate folkiness.

The lyrics here are just as poetic as his past writings. It's intriguing to read his collection, "King Ink", and see how he's gone from short, creepy rants to eloquent poetry in his lyrics. In any case, the lyrics on "No More Shall We Part" are even more philosophical than his past writings, dealing with issues of theodicy, intolerance, religious fanaticism, and...walking. Yes, walking. Three of the best songs on this album are about walks the narrator takes, noticing the weirdness of the world. Progressing from private, disturbed melancholia ("Hallelujah"), to half-narcissistic paranoia ("Oh My Lord") to a recognition of the truth about the world ("Darker With the Day"), the three "walking songs" here are a journey of their own.

Some people have called the songs here pretentious - but I don't see that at all. Why should philosophical depth and musical beauty be mutually exclusive?

The album begins with the gentle, yet intense "As I Sat Sadly By Her Side". Beginning with urgent, roiling guitar work that, for me, is somehow evocative of Southwestern/American-Indian spirituality (the lyrics driving this home), it goes into a narrative about the main character of the song and his wife sitting by a window having a philosophical discussion. She presents her case, in a litany of the world's wonders that reminds me of an Indian tapestry, or even the paintings of cavemen, combining vaguely-drawn sketches of people with vivid description:

Father, mother, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, and nephew, niece
Soldier, sailor, physician, labourer, actor, scientist, mechanic, priest
Earth and moon and sun and stars and planets and comets with tails blazing
All of them forever falling - falling lovely and amazing

The humanistic discussion of the misery of humanity continues, as Cave's character presents his side of the story ("That may be very well, I said, but watch the one falling in the street / See him gesture to his neighbours / See him trampled beneath their feet / All outward motion connects to nothing, for each is concerned with their immediate need"). It ends with more philosophical speculations:

Then she drew the curtains down, and said, "When will you ever learn
That what happens there beyond the glass is simply none of your concern?
God has given you but one heart; you are not a home for the hearts of your brothers
And God don't care for your benevolence anymore than he cares for the lack of it in others
Nor does he care for you to sit at windows in judgement of the world he created
While sorrows pile up around you, ugly, useless, and overinflated."

Sorry to quote so extensively, but it really is necessary, just to show the beauty and depth of Cave's lyrics. He's definitely gone beyond the style of his past, into a whole new realm of ideas.

The next song - "And No More Shall We Part" - is rather weak, probably my last favorite of the album. The lyrics are pretty, but the accompaniment is just too sparse to really hit home.

Then comes "Hallelujah". The arrangement of this seven-minute epic is exquisite; beginning with a desolate, lonesome violin riff that twists and morphs just a bit over the course of the song, but never really changes, it follows a firm verse-chorus-verse structure that makes it seem like a litany, though in fact it's a story, of a walk an older man takes:

On the first day in May I took to the road
I'd been staring out of the window most of the morning
Watched the rain claw at the glass
And a vicious wind blew hard and fast -
Shoulda taken it as a warning!

The song ends in a turmoil of quiet, rhythmic drumming and violin, which slowly fades out with the McGarrigles singing a creepy chorus:

The tears are welling in my eyes again
I need twenty big buckets to catch them in
Twenty pretty girls to carry them down
Twenty deep holes to bury them in

This is one of the best moments on the album. Vladimir Nabokov (one of Cave's sources of inspiration) used to talk about how the true indication of artistic greatness was the tingle in your spine - well, you'll sure feel that here!

Next, we get "Love Letter". Not a great song, though again the lyrics are okay. This one's soft, and I suspect that it's done mainly as a sort of bonus, in light of the fact that it was also performed at Cave's live lecture/concert. But then comes "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow", which is nice, a very cool song - going from quiet and menacing to loud and explosive in an instant.

"God Is In the House" is quirky. I'd call it a satire, except that it's rather extended, stretching over six minutes. It deals with the theme of small-town life, yet this town is strangely enlightened and serene:

Homos roaming the streets in packs, queer-bashers with tirejacks
Lesbian counter-attacks -that stuff's for the big cities
Our town is very pretty
We have a pretty little square, we have a woman for a mayor
Our policy is firm but fair
Now that God is in the house

I'd say that the aim of the song is to portray an escape from big-city life and so forth, into a quaint past without the wide range of tolerance, yet also without the worries of city life.

Then comes the album's finest moment - "Oh My Lord". Beginning with some lovely a capella singing, it moves slowly into a dramatic ballad - always coming back to a chorus of "Oh Lord / Oh my Lord / Oh Lord / How have I offended thee? / Wrap your tender arms around me". It's definitely a depressing song - it recounts a tale of a man wandering through his day, as he gets more and more paranoid about the people who surround him. But the music is vintage Cave; this could come from one of his earlier albums, were it not for the sparkling-clear production and the innovative touch of the violin in combination with squalling mountains of feedback that rise and fall between verses. After "Oh My Lord", we get "Sweetheart Come", a quiet song. It's dark in theme, but also comforting, as Cave repeats "It's late but it ain't never".

"Sorrowful Wife", next, is one of the coolest songs I've ever heard. It begins much the same as "Sweetheart Come", only there's an underlying tension. It's like sitting in a piano bar, watching a man with a hatchet creep up behind the piano player. A few minutes of lulling, repetitive verses - and then about three minutes into the song, there are some sudden, suspenseful piano notes - and a glorious, violent explosion of feedback! Cave begins to scream the lyrics out, sounding like a demon from hell, and it's all so wonderful, and I won't go on so as not to ruin it for you.

"We Came Along This Road" begins with great lyrics - "I left by the back door, with my wife's lover's smoking gun" - and from there spins a short tale of adultery. The song is rather pretty, in particular the accompaniment of the McGarrigles, and the string arrangements near the end. "Gates To the Garden" is also good, though it doesn't really stand out.

The final song, "Darker With the Day", is one of the most vivid and poetic Cave has ever done. It's quiet, and surprisingly upbeat. Perhaps Cave is trying to fit a few too many words into the music; to really understand the meaning of the lyrics, it's necessary to take a look at the lyrics. But how can you not love lyrics like "Amateurs, dilettantes, hacks, cowboys, clones, the streets groan with little Caesars, Napoleons and c?nts"?

This is a sprawling album, admittedly. It takes quite a few listenings to catch on to what Cave is trying to do here; he's trying to present a widespread philosophical statement that remains within the bounds of music and beauty. Turns out that it works equally well as either.

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Reading or Studying