Let Love In/Murder Ballads/The Boatman’s Call/No More Shall We Part

EMI

The four albums released between 1994 and 2001 by Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds rank amongst the most essential in the Australian group’s extensive body of work.

Bolstered by the classic line-up of Cave, Blixa Bargeld, Martyn B. Casey, Warren Ellis, Mick Harvey, Conway Savage, Jim Sclavunos and Thomas Wylder, this quadrant of titles from this Big Band Bad Seeds era saw them delivering the richest, most dramatic work they ever recorded together, bolstered by plaintive piano balladry, sweeping orchestrations, brass section swells and Sondheim-esque theatrics that took the band’s post-punk fury to bold new heights of beauty and refinement.

1994’s Let Love In found the Seeds reshaping their raw edge in ways they never did before, notably on quieter tracks like “Nobody’s Baby Now” and “Ain’t Gonna Rain No More.” But these instances of pulchritude are counterbalanced by the band at their savage best on tracks like the face-ripping “Jangling Jack” and the wonton “Loverman,” a song so heavy it inspired Metallica to cover it. 1996’s Murder Ballads, however, was draped in the kind of black box musical zeal that helps punctuate the core of this darkly animated song cycle about death and all her friends. As the band delivers a full-tilt fusion of gothic blues, country waltz and cool jazz cabaret, Cave dives headfirst into a Peckinpah-like afterworld in a tone that would define his artistic direction over the course of the last decade and change. Splitting the cost between public domain covers and wild originals, including a pair of duets with gal pals PJ Harvey (“Henry Lee”) and Kylie Minogue (“Where the Wild Roses Grow”), Ballads might not be the greatest Bad Seeds LP, but it certainly served as an intriguing starting point for many fans who came late to the dance in the mid-90s.

For those who thought Murder Ballads marked a creative new direction for Cave and company that would serve as a permanent template moving forward, The Boatman’s Call delivered quite a shock upon its release on March 4, 1997. Gone was the bombastic grandiosity that permeated its predecessor; in its place a calm, deeply personal quietude written primarily on grand piano and interlaced with some of the most personal lyrics Cave has ever penned. The album’s inward fragility finally helped place the former Birthday Party singer in the upper echelon of rock’s greatest bards alongside Leonard Cohen and Scott Walker, and to this day can still be considered pound-for-pound his finest achievement with the Bad Seeds. Moving on from such a career high point as Boatman certainly must have been no easy task. Hence the five-year wait before unearthing its follow-up, No More Shall We Part, in 2001. Though not as definitive in the scope of its groundbreaking forerunner, the band’s eleventh LP certainly comes close enough to its majesty in so many ways, taking Boatman’s spare ethos and expanding upon it with a soulful, gospel-like transcendence. Augmented by the backing vocals of the legendary McGarragle sisters as well as stellar arrangements composed by Ellis and Harvey, Part brings the Bad Seeds sound to a cinematic level of expression. It is a record that served as the quintessential transition from their material in the late 90s to their uncompromising stuff in the 00s on albums like Abbatoir Blus/The Lyre of Orpheus and Dig Lazarus Dig.

If there is one fault to be discussed in the deluxe editions of these Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds albums, similarly to the grievance with its predecessors it is the way by which the bonus material is handled. While it is clearly understood the reasons why the label trapped all of the extras on the DVD end of these reissues to combat piracy , it does prove to be a bit annoying for those of us who aren’t in front of a TV or computer all day to enjoy them. Especially with regards to the audio material, much of which is mighty savory in this particular batch of reissues, and could have easily fit within the time span of the CD portion of these collections. But that is the only caveat of this otherwise impressive and jam-packed campaign (in addition the DVD also contains videos, short films about each album and the entire LP in DTS Surround Sound 5.1), one that does an excellent job chronicling this most important span of time in the career of Australia’s finest sonic export.