Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus

This is ultimate big brother cool music. Nick Cave just has this way of spinning the darkest yarns. need to revisit. when I am not traveling.

YES, I see it now.

This one surprised me. The only Nick Cave I have heard previously was Ghosteen which I had generated near the beginning of the challenge. I expected this to be similarly somber. Boy was I wrong. The whole first disc absolutely slaps you in the face with its layered vocals and dense instrumentals. The Lyre of Orpheus disc is more subdued, but builds with each consecutive song. I think I prefer the Abattoir Blues side, but adored all of this. He knows his vocal range and takes advantage of his limitations. This sounds both old and new.

Don’t have time to listen to a double album so skimmed this. It’s fine, a bit repetitive but some pleasant bits. Could not have told you what Nick Cave sounded like before this. 3 because it was good but I won’t play it again.

Partly annoying, but in other parts enjoyable.

Nope

Alright, I'm already familiar with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds as an influential goth rock act, having heard select songs before including his 2013 album "Push the Sky Away".

I will say here, this is technically a double album, but arranged into two different sounding albums. Abbatoir Blues contains more abrasive, rocking tunes, while The Lyre of Orpheus contains more chorus-driven ballads with some potent hooks. That's where I would recommend breaking your listening time into two different sessions, one for each disc.

The other hurdle with this project is that the music better resonates if you're already familiar with Nick Cave's songwriting. How he touches upon themes of death, gothic tragedy, relationships, and religious imagery is established by earlier material. It doesn't work as effectively if say you're on this site getting daily randomly generated albums, this comes up and you hadn't heard of Nick Cave before. If you have the time, I recommend listening to a greatest hits compilation or playlist before approaching these two albums.

For those already familiar with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, yeah these are two great albums. I admittedly got a bit more mileage out of the melodic nature of The Lyre of Orpheus, but both are worth your time.

Do not make a sound

Старичок в этот раз душевно вошёл в мою грешную жизнь. Затронул струнки души. Только блять зачем двойной альбом полуторачасовой?

This is ok. Didn't hate, didn't blow my mind. Wanted to understand the hype, but didn't see it. Very long album.

Een album dat is opgezet als twee albums. Het eerste album heet al Blues en als je blues mengt met Nick is gelijk duidelijk hoe dit klinkt. De stem is soms schurend bij de muzikale opzet. Als je één nummer luistert, past dat goed. Als je het hele album achter elkaar luistert, is het wel wat veel van die opzet.

Het tweede album is wat rustiger. Het voelt wat nep soms. Met één nummer is dat niet heel erg. Maar het hele album wordt wel saai.

Het is in dit geval dus helemaal niet zo prettig dat hij de genres van elkaar scheidt. Tip: gebruik bij dit album de shuffle-knop. Vandaag het album op die manier nog eens opgezet. En dan vind ik het veel prettiger. Daarmee krijg ik er toch een extra halve ster uit. Zet ik Nick op 3,5. Had ik van tevoren nooit verwacht.

I like this album a lot. I've always really liked Nick Cave in general and had never listened to this album all the way through. I like how it's almost two albums smashed together - the first half is more in your face and the second is a little softer and more ballad-ish. I think it was a good idea to release it as one long album instead of two short ones - it flows really well. I would rate this somewhere between 4 and 5, but didn't like it quite enough to give it a 5 so 4/5 it is.

80 minutes of this guy?! On a Monday?! "The Lyre of Orpheus"!? Come on man, give me a fucking break. This album has the frantic energy of a mega-church band trying to whip the congregation into a frenzy with an overwhelming deluge of keyboards and big reverby drums and wailing. Sometimes that's pretty fun. The bass is really good throughout - melodic, driving and high in the mix. There's also some nice atmospheric/textural stuff and some cool guitar parts. I just find the songwriting to be very conventional big bland rock but with grand pretensions to it. And I don't like Tom Waits enough to want to listen to a pale imitator. Every song seems like it should be wrapping up, but then there's another verse/chorus, and bou does it start to drag in the moodier slower second half. It has a cool film-noir feel to it, but the whole thing really overstays its welcome.

Favorites: Messiah Ward, Let the Bells Ring, Easy Money

First time hearing any Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Really interesting. Kept me engaged over both of the albums, but kind of a bit much to take in all at once. Kind of Tom Waits-ish but without the annoying gravelly-voiced circus ringmaster character. Kind of pretentious, the songs about love and sex were compelling but lack ambiguity or abstraction that makes someone else's stories artistic. Otherwise very enjoyable on a Saturday afternoon cleaning my raingutters!

Really 4.5 for record 1 and 3 for record 2.

First one is a banger and such fun to listen to. Second not so much.

Been sitting on this album for a week now, to get time to give it a proper listen it deserves.

This is the best Nick Cave album Iv heard, the first half is perfection 5 stars, slows down a lot in the second half but it’s beautiful, to rate that part separately I’d give it 4 stars, taking the album as a hole it’s just too long in my personal opinion for
Full marks, so a very high 4 stars and a new favourite Nick Cave album for me, though more likely to listen to the first half more than the second in the future.

Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
I’ve never listened to this before. I actually listened to the one after this, Dig Lazarus Dig a fair bit when it came out, and I like The Boatman’s Call, mainly on the basis of Into My Arms, which I love. I also really got into the soundtracks Nick Cave did with Warren Ellis, mainly The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James. The Wind River soundtrack too. And Red Right Hand of course.

Beyond that I’ve not really delved into anything to much else. I do like, or at the very least find his stuff interesting. Even if it’s not ‘enjoyable’ it has a singularity and sense of idiosyncratic flair I really appreciate.

It wasn’t until after the first listen that I learned that it is two separate albums rather than a standard double album. They do feel like two different records so it kind of makes sense to review them separately.

Abattoir Blues
The overall sound is cool, kind of big and spacey and rocking and loud, but without being too massive or bombastic or distant.

The band do have a real litheness, even on the relatively ‘straight ahead’ rock songs they create a real groove. The bass and drums are great in that regard - not necessarily thorough musical virtuosity but through feel. The piano playing and backing vocals also stood out particularly.

Hiding All Away is great - kind of broken rhythm with a nagging groove. Pretty funny lyrics.
There She Goes, My Beautiful World - they play this a lot on 6 Music, it’s a great tune.
Nature Boy is also excellent.

I liked the sense of drama (and humour) and raucousness, and I like the wryness of his voice and manner, at turns Morrison, Dylan and Jagger-esque. He also has that great knack for really interesting little melodies and hooks.

Lyre of Orpheus

Love love the title song
Breathless - lovely melody, give this to a safe MOR band and in the pre download days I can see it being a massive hit. Someone like the Corrs or Sixpence None the Richer. But the edge he has just tips it into really interesting territory that tension elevates it beyond just a nice melody

I like the numerous mentions of and allusions to birds, and the tension between melancholy and joy, lyrically and melodically on this one.

Both albums are a 4 for me, so a 4 overall. Both close to 5 but I can’t quite work out whether I’d prefer them as two distinct albums or as the double package. I think they work together but I would probably go back to them as two separate albums. Maybe a slight preference for Lyre of Orpheus but they are both great.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Nick Cave fan, so this gets five stars.

Like going to church. Not a good one.

The slippery slope of having Harry Potter read to me at age 4 to becoming a Nick Cave fan at 27 is very real & dangerous. Heed my warning
(the song "O Children" is featured in the moving picture Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Pt. I [2010])

Surprised myself at how I enjoyed this a fair bit more than Murder Ballads, the more eclectic of the two (three?).
I guess when you have a winning cocktail of blues, gospel, rock & folk, with some theatre and horror added for good measure, I’ll take a whole double album of it.

HL: "Get Ready for Love", "Nature Boy", "There She Goes, My Beautiful World", “Supernaturally”, “Breathless”, “Carry Me”/"O Children"

December 31, 2023.
That was 2023, eh? Hm