Nick Cave

Cave's lyrics have always found beauty in life's darkest corners, but with Nocturama his music becomes more stately and controlled, and his songwriting cuts deeper. That said, in-between all of the romantic and physically and emotionally violent ballads, he goes totally nuts on "Dead Man in My Bed." "Babe, I'm On Fire" is ridiculously over the top (in a good way).

On his twelfth album with the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave offers more of the gloomy torch songs
and demon-exorcising mojo that have made him Australia's ranking goth poet. Sometimes
Cave sounds like Leonard Cohen with a better band and a richer voice, as on the trio of
pretty, slow-burning ballads that kick off the album. But Cave really gets into high gear on
"Dead Man in My Bed" and the fifteen-minute closer, "Babe, I'm on Fire," both gar... More >