Product Description

Their first album since 1997's 'The Boatman's Call'. It wasrecorded throughout the autumn of 2000 at London's Abbey Road studios. Initial copies of the CD include a CD-Rom featuring exclusive footage of the band at Abbey Road. Also includes the single 'As I Sat Sadly By Her Side'.

Track Listing

1. As I Sat Sadly By Her Side
2. And No More Shall We Part
3. Hallelujah
4. Love Letter
5. Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow
6. God Is In The House
7. Oh My Lord
8. Sweetheart Come
9. The Sorrowful Wife
10. We Came Along This Road
11. Gates To The Garden
12. Darker With The Day

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1579 in Music
• Released on: 2001-04-02
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Eleven studio albums into Nick Cave's career, and it seems that the long wait for his first duff album must continue. No More Shall We Part contains a greater wealth of musical invention and lyrical intelligence in its 68 minutes than most acts manage in an entire career of trying. Cave is not merely in a different league from most of his peers; he's scarcely even playing the same game. No More Shall We Part sees a renewed emphasis on the virtuosity of Cave's long-time backing band, The Bad Seeds--Cave's last album, 1997's superb The Boatman's Call, was a relatively sparse affair. They decorate the sprawling ballads on No More Shall We Part with their usual aplomb, helped on several tracks--notably the gorgeous "Hallelujah"--by the crystalline harmonies of veteran folk singers Kate and Anna McGarrigle. The sound, overall, is best imagined as what Cave and The Bad Seeds were trying to accomplish on Henry's Dream. Cave's lyrical preoccupations have remained more or less constant--God, love and the loss thereof, death (all the greats). As ever, Cave deals with these with greater agility and imagination than anyone else--with the possible exceptions of his obvious eternal idols Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash--and, as ever, is frequently funnier than generally given credit for. --Andrew Mueller

Customer Reviews

Perhaps his weakest moment...
Not the popular view maybe, but for me, this is one of Nick Cave's least impressive albums, and I am a serious fan and know and enjoy his work from The Birthday Party through to Dig Lazarus Dig!!!. That's not to say it's without merit - the title track, God Is In The House and The Sorrowful Wife are excellent, while Darker With The Day is sublime.

However, having stripped things back from the violence of his early work on the beautiful Boatman's Call album, it seems almost as they don't know quite where to go with this one. Many of the ballads aim for the rawness and tenderness of his previous album but somehow fail to convince, as if his lecture on the art of writing a love song had dried out this frequently wonderful aspect of his work into a stuffily intellectual rather than truly passionate exercise. And the more aggressive material fares no better - rarely have the Bad Seeds sounded so bereft of life.

Maybe Cave was little overwhelmed to finally find himself embraced by the dull weekend broadsheets following Boatman's Call and his Best Of, and intimidated by the kudos given to his writing. Certainly, it contains some of his most self-conciously "literary" writing, and as a result is frequently heavy-handed - As I Sat Sadly By Her Side has wince-inducingly pretentious and clumsy lyrics, while the humour in tracks such as Hallelujah and O My Lord is all but swallowed up by the pompousness. On top of this, many of the songs seem to go on far too long - I have nothing against long songs per se but it helps if they at least have some substantial meat on their bones, and many of these offering don't, they simply bluster on and on.

In my view, these problems remain on his next album Nocturama, though that is more consistent, and the Bad Seeds at least seem to be awake. It's not until the magnificent Abbatoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus that Cave & The Bad Seeds really return to form, and what form it is - perhaps better than ever, a real triumph. If you are new to their material or keen to investigate more of the band's back catalogue, I would whole-heartedly recommend that double album, or earlier masterpieces such as Tender Prey, Boatman's Call, Let Love In or Murder Ballads. In fact, almost any of his other studio albums are more interesting than this one. A few treasures, and a great deal of work passable for a mediocre artist, but hugely disappointing for one capable of such brilliance.

frustrating
amount of tracks :12
excellent :3
v.good :1
good :4
fair :4
poor :0

That cave is a real genius songwriter there is no doubt. but, the frustrating thing for me whilst listening to his work is that for every track that makes your jaw hit the floor in wonder there are plenty more alongside it that are so disjointed that you wonder whether the same artist is responsible! most of his early work is unlistenable to me, being just a racket with no sense of itself. all noise and bluster with no real power, regardless of how good the lyrical imagery is. his later work settled down somewhat and this album is probably his very best. and its his best because half of it is in the area that suits this man best - on slow, introspective numbers. cos when he and his band raise the bar they cannot cut it in my opinion. there are half a dozen lovely songs on this album, the title track itself is a fine peice of work (we'll forgive him slipping out of tune!) 'god is in the house' is also a great track. by far and away the highlight of this album though is 'love letter' - surely one of the greatest peons to love ever written and an incredibly sad and moving peice of music. harrowingly sad in fact! its so frustrating that this guy can hit such heights of songwriting - real premier division stuff - and then in the next instant descend into chaotic bluster. it beats me why he cant see where his true strengths are and capitalize on them. its alright to say that albums need light and shade, but in caves case the quality between the introspective numbers and the 'uptempo' ones are so wide that it makes that argument valueless. another prime example is from his recent 'abbatoir blues' album where only one track, 'hiding all away' saves the album from being a wasteful mess

all caves albums suffer from this malady, some more than others. this is the least affected and therefore the most recommended. what this means is, no matter what, you have to plough through all his work cos theres gems out there and those gems are solid gold and must be heard. tracks like 'love letter' 'weeping song' 'nobodys baby now' - staggeringly beautiful songs, but like i said , you have to trawl through some dross to get there
if this sounds like a put-down, its not meant to be as i consider cave to be one of the most important artists around. but he is so very unpredictable that he makes for truly frustrating listening. as for this album, id give it 5 stars for 'love letter' alone, but cos of this unpredictability and inconsistency, it doesnt warrant more than a 3 star rating as a whole. do, however, seek it out just for the aforementioned tracks, and also go seek out all his other albums cos theres treasures out there! be advised though, the journey is a very rocky one......

Beautiful, moving, perfect, special, touching, haunting...
The first time I heard this album I went into a sort of trance and when the 68 minutes were up there were tears streaming down my face.

The album is special, it touches you in ways no other music can hope to. There is no point writing any more music...this is the best it can ever be.

This album belongs in every CD collection.