Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Nocturama

Record Label: (Mute)

We need people like Nick Cave. With the charts overflowing with Pop Idol production line piffle and Robbie Williams now considered our most talented songwriter, it seems like a good time to pay a visit to the dark, intriguing lounge bar from hell that is Nocturama.
By turns unspeakably beautiful and almost unlistenable - often at the same time - the Bad Seeds latest studio album is filled with a searing passion and wilful diversity that has been noticeably absent from rock'n'roll records recently.
Take the album's final tune "Babe, I'm On Fire". Clocking in at an epic 15 minutes, Cave delivers a vocal which is a crazed, intense declaration of love that threatens to overpower him at every turn.
The beauty of Nick Cave is that he is equally comfortable as a smacked-up crooner on the sublime "He Wants You", as he is over the impossibly delicate piano of "Still In Love". Both are typical of the lyrical eloquence and romantic sentiments that dominate this album.
That he's even made it this far, through heroin problems and duets with Kylie, to make possibly his best record ever is a testament to this true star's determination and talent. Such raw, eccentric, soulful music is unlikely to trouble the charts, but who cares.