Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus

a nick cave album i don't have but i really like - had heard o children in Harry Potter

The Good: We’ve got a little bit of this…
The Bad: We’ve got a little bit of that…
The Ugly: Finding out that Orpheus Lyre isn’t what we thought it would be… Guess the word Cave and Seed should have given us a fair warning!

What a lovely double album this turned out to be.
I am no fan of Nick, his previous outing on this list I believe was ranked with 2*, however, this double outing, this is worth double that no problem.

That’s it, all I’ve got… guess I’ve got nothing better to do than to listen to this double outing again!

4*

I had skipped this one when it came out. I had assumed it was an unnecessarily long collection of ballads which I had enough of on No More Shall We Part (my favorite Nick Cave album). But there’s a lot more variety here than I expected. Disc one has some tracks that feel a bit like okder Cave though sans Blixa and plus gospel backup singers. Disc two brings the soft ballads and stuff that sounds like Jimmy Buffet. A mixed bag for sure. More is less here and it’s far from a classic Nick Cave record.

I was excited to see Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus on the list today. As a huge Nick Cave fan, I realized it’s been a long time since I last gave this one a proper listen.

Going in, my view was that there are far stronger Bad Seeds albums—The Boatman’s Call and Let Love In are particularly brilliant. I never really connected with this record when it came out, apart from the standout tracks Get Ready for Love and Breathless. Still, I was curious to revisit it and see if my opinion had shifted.

As a double album, Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus has room to stretch out, offering a wide range of styles—rock, ballads, and slower bluesy numbers. The variety really works, and Nick’s vocals sound fantastic throughout. The Bad Seeds are in top form too, delivering a full, powerful rock and roll sound. The whole record is bigger, louder, and ultimately better than I remembered.

I also enjoyed rediscovering songs I’d forgotten about, like Cannibal’s Hymn, Hiding All Away, and Messiah Ward. Side one in particular feels especially strong. Add to that the gems O Children and There She Goes, My Beautiful World, which are just gorgeous songs. And of course, there’s Breathless—a moment of pure joy and one of my absolute favourite Bad Seeds tracks.

Favourite track: Breathless
Least favourite track: None that truly fall flat
Album artwork: A really classy cover

So this is the first double album I am getting and also first time I am getting a 2nd album from an artist I already got before and this also happens to be the artist I will see live in a year so very excited. This will surely be a dense listen, knowing Cave.

P.S. Busy day at work and pub after, will be tough to absorb this one.
P.S.2 Rating this 4.5 on RYM, but I think I'll go for 4 stars here

Nick Cave is an artist I hear people talk about all the time but I've managed to stay completely ignorant of for my entire life (plus 3 years). Going into this, I know he's got a devoted fanbase but I have no concept of what his music sounds like. And now I get to find out with a double album, that's kinda fun!

His voice has a lounge singer bravado/sleeze - a dark theatricality -that I do occasionally find compelling (The The, Electric Six, some Tom Waits, The Oogie Boogie Man in Nightmare Before Christmas, Dracula in Jason Segel's Dracula Musical "A Taste For Love", Richard Cheese, etc). It's compelling here, but it begins to wear on me over the course of the first disc. Thankfully, it's muted on the second record as they shift into more downtempo songs.

"Get Ready For Love" - Starting the album with an in-your-face blues/rock song definitely makes me feel like I'm joining a conversation already in progress; there's no chance to get my bearings before getting the full force of NC&TBS directly in my face. It's their 13th album, so I guess they've pretty well established their sound and can expect you to know what you're getting into when you press play.

"Cannibal's Hymn" - so close to being an earnest version of the Jason Segel Dracula Musical "Die. Die. Die. I Can't" that it hurts.

"Nature Boy" - I missed this one initially, but on second listen this one stood out for me like "Supernaturally" did on my first pass.

"Supernaturally" - this is the fourth-to-last song on the album, but it's the track that finally swayed me from "this is fine" to "this is pretty good".

"O Children" - this must be the hit, because it has almost 200M more listens than any other song on the record. The backing vocals and harmonies were one of my favorite features of "Supernaturally", and they're back in full force here.

Really enjoyed this one, feels like the generator should give you two days for this one since it’s so clearly two albums.

Why release one incredible album when you can release two.

Abattoir Blues - Intense
Lyre of Orpheus - Reflective & melodic.

I can’t even pick a favourite

The only Nick Cave album I’ve ever heard was when I generated Murder Ballads nearly a year ago and I absolutely love that one, probably in my top 5 new discoveries so far. As a result I had high expectations going in and it more than met them, this is bloody BRILLIANT. I still prefer Murder Ballads out of the two but it is very close between them.

Top Track - There She Goes, My Beautiful World. Banger of a song

Classy as fuck. If I had to choose a side I'd pick The Lyre of Orpheus. Some proper stately shit on that side.

3.58

For me when a white rock star reaches for a gospel choir, creatively speaking, the jig is almost up. It has its moments but this is the start of the break up for me and Nick.

I am clearly not hip enough to love Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds as much as the critics from Pitchfork or the people that made this list that are trying to cram Nick Cave down my throat 6 (6! fucking 6!) times.
The music is ho hum modern gothic blues done better by other artists. The lyrics float willy nilly between 'almost great, where is this going' to 'did 7th grader write this for his poetry class'.
This feels like the kind of group its fans would hate if they sold 8 million copies of an album.
I wouldn't leave the room if it was playing but I am most certainly never going to purposely play any of it.

There are some pretty great tracks on this album. But there’s also plenty of filler that isn’t really interesting. Cut it down to a single album instead of a double and it’d be pretty solid

This is a marked improvement over Henry's Dream. On the whole, it just felt much more sonically engaging to me, and actually had some compelling energy contained within it. Even the more reserved tracks didn't feel quite as plodding or morose, and Cave isn't doing so much of his signature wailing either.

However, at 82 minutes in length, it's a thumbs in the middle for me as far as its replayability stakes are concerned. I wouldn't be averse, but equally I'm not chomping at the bit to hear more.

This is a bit shit. I've heard people talk about Nick Cave like he's some sort of mythical creature, so I expected more. Maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't care.

Meh

I had heard of them but never listen to any of their stuff. Solid album but I wish my first exposure was not a double album. I was ready for it to be over by the end, but the last song in particular is fantastic.

Zwischen Genie und Wahnsinn. Leider mehr Wahnsinn

Pretty nice and good for background music.