Product Description

The fourteenth studio album from Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds transports the biblical character of the title to contemporary New York, as well as drawing inspiration from escapologist Harry Houdini. Featuring the majority of his usual personnel in The Bad Seeds (including violinist Warren Ellis and organist/pianist Conway Savage), 'Dig, Lazarus, Dig' displays a rawer, more garage-inspired rock sound closer to Cave's side-project Grinderman. The lead single (and title track) displays the kind of meandering wordplay and subversive narratives that Nick Cave has become notable for.

Track Listing

1. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
2. Today's Lesson
3. Moonland
4. Night Of The Lotus Eaters
5. Albert Goes West
6. We Call Upon The Author
7. Hold On To Yourself
8. Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)
9. Jesus Of The Moon
10. Midnight Man
11. More News From Nowhere

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #916 in Music
• Released on: 2008-03-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Limited Edition

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

Customer Reviews

Another two great songs
After the release of the magnificent "The Boatman's Call" it seems Nick Cave has chosen to release an album as soon as he had two or three inspired songs ready. It was certainly true for "No More Shall We Part", "Nocturama" and "Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus" and it goes for "Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!" as well.

On this latest release the songs "Hold on to yourself" and "Jesus of the Moon" hold the standard we have come to expect from Nick Cave over the years, while the rest are bland and leave no lasting impression, even after repeated listening. When Nick Cave finds his inspiration he is an exceptional songwriter and performer so I'll give three stars for the two songs alone. If only he had put the best songs from the last four albums on one album instead of four we would have had a contender for the best release of the decade.

Growing old disgracefully
If I had reviewed this after one listen, I would have given it three stars at best. However, after a couple of weeks I realised I'd played the album, in full or in part, almost every day. It had grown on me before I noticed. So, yes,the lyrics are incoherent in places & make no logical sense at all. And, no, there isn't much in the way of a tune to be had. But the noise it makes is simply gorgeous, & Cave's voice is at its best after sounding downright enfeebled on the overrated 'Abattoir/Lyre' album. I think this one will suit people who have a sneaking feeling that old Nick has got too comfy recently: those who feel he has come of age as a mature artist will be horrified. I recently read that he plans to go on till he's sixty, which came as a relief to those of us who found those last "goodbyes" a bit ominous. Let's hope he continues to grow old disgracefully.

More News from Cave's Genius
I've had this album for a while now, and it's all sunk in. If you haven't already, it's about time you did!

The album art sums up the album well. There's something a bit more sensational and showy about DLD than the other Cave albums I have (which includes almost all of them). The songs are attacked with a bombast and theatricality that hails back perhaps to Murder Ballads. Yet here he has more of a sense of humour, and he takes a strange kind of joy in yelling at you about the exploits of his various characters. Which leads to another point - the characters. After the wonderfully personal and piano-led songs since The Boatman's Call, he finally completes the return to character-rich albums that began in Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre of Orpheus. Ranging from 70s Lazarus and Mr Sandman the inseminator to figures from Cave's real and song-mythology past such as Deanna (see Tender Prey) & 'Miss Polly' (P.J. Harvey I assume), DLD could have a cast list of a length not seen since The Lord of the Rings.

Enough about the album, on to the songs themselves :-

Dig, Lazarus Dig!!! as we should know by now is the tale of the Biblical Lazarus, set in somewhat modern North America (he travels a bit) and with a heap of poetic-lisence-induced speculation. Life does not go well for Lazarus, but nevertheless Cave leaps from pleading for empathy for 'poor Larry' to almost loathing him from sentence to sentence.

The innocent young Janie and a sinister Mr Sandman feature in Today's Lesson, where to a background of excited, almost danceable music Nick shouts of Mr Sandman's advances towards Janie.

Moonland is like a diamond in a cave (hmm...) full of gems. The sign of a great song for me is that it intrigues you on first listen, but refuses to go away. Moonland has an unusual collection of sounds we can refer to as 'rhythm' with an accompanying bassline that complement each other perfectly, and serve to enhance the barren post-apocalyptic landscape and the freed prisoner trying to find his way around it. Often times, unusual sounds geta bit old, the innovativeness becomes lost on you and you're left reaching for a Heavy Metal or Sing-a-long CD, but Moonland is in itself a great song that is a delight to listen to again and again and again. That doesn't imply that the rest of the album tracks aren't - Moonland is just a personal favourite.

Talking of strange musicality, we come to Night of the Lotus Eaters. It sounds like the title to a very old low-budget horror movie, and in an almost self-mocking way that is exactly what Cave and the Seeds (some of them, anyway) deliver. A hypnotic and repetitive bass riff with matching guitar accompanied by the narration of Nick, the song is undeniably epic and definitely quite spooky. Another of the stand-out songs.

Albert Goes West is apparently the last song written for the album, after the work was done. What's it about? Who cares, the hard work's finished, to paraphrase the writer. It seems to unfold randomely, and there's no real point to it. Some se this as a strngth and some as a weakness. Musically, I think this sounds like 'Nick Cave & The Kaiser Chiefs', with not-too-heavy guitar, ooh-oooh-ooh backing vocals and not too much experimentation. Albert took me a while to enjoy, but enjoy it I do.

We Call Upon the Author is a frantic attempt at making God answer for the state of the planet (Amazon's no place for theology, but I'd be more concerned with asking humanity myself...). The introduction sounds like it's ripped from Tricks of the Light from Mike Oldfield's Discovery album (my other great musical hero), but develops into a suitably aggressive backdrop for the courtroom accusations that follow. I especially love the 'Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!' and the ensuing unusual breakdown section. Oh, and the doop doop doop vocals.

Distant guitar squeals underly the beautiful Hold On to Yourself, which I believe contains some of the best lyrical content of the album, possibly even of my entire music collection, lyrics which perfectly compliment the air of a solitude and distant, or perhaps suppressed, turmoil.

So after a quiet moment, we head straight back into the frenzy with Lie Down Here, a heavy and almost insane rocker that treads between being sexually charged and ...well, slightly less sexually romantic. The title says all that the songs says.

...and back to the quietness of jesus of the Moon, a tender tale that should (but doesn't) feel out of place. DLD has been called an attempt to return to older Seeds styles, but this track could be from No More Shall We Part.

Midnight Man is another favourite of mine, hovering between the sensitivity of Jesus of the Moon and the all-out rock of Today's Lesson, musically and lyrically. Hard to pinpoint what the song is about, yet it seems to make sense nonetheless.

I always admire how Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds can finish an album with the perfect song, and More News is no exception, as to a soft and quite chilled out backing Nick glances over his past and revisits an enormous wealth of characters from his own song-mythology and actual past, more so than the rest of the album. More News from Nowhere has an air of finality to it, and (much as I hate the idea) if Cave retired now it would seem the perfect final song.

BUt he doesn't show any signs of stopping, and I certainly eagerly await his next offering! In the meantime, I give this 6 stars. Although, I'm only allowed to give it 5. It's the thought that counts.