Love and Death in the city

One quiet organ note drones until Nick Cave's voice emerges slowly like a fog or the ghost of Jim Morrison, beckoning "Come in, babe. It's a Wonderful Life," he says, but only, "if you can find it." The bass and piano come in, and the shade of Nocturama slips over a fallen city. The city is still evil, her twisted members wrapped up in carnal pleasures. Safe inside, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are playing lullabies to sooth her lovers.\nIn 1996, the stench of the city's carnage had seeped into every crack. There was no respite, no shelter from the blood in the streets. Nick Cave sang Murder Ballads of detailed, gruesome slayings. Further back in time, with the Birthday Party and on his first album with the Bad Seeds, From Her to Eternity, Nick Cave began his dark, abrasive edition of rock. In comparison, Marilyn Manson seems glamorous and commercial. Cave fashioned a gothic wickedness nasty enough to take Big Black into the filthy streets for a fight to the death.\nIt's not until the middle of Nocturama that Nick Cave's past devours him. The city's throbbing pulse must have been pounding in his head during his piano ballads. "Dead Man In My Bed" massacres the love previous tracks built with an army of raging guitar noise. In the song that follows, "Still In Love," Cave takes back its sentiments and showcases Warren Ellis' slurring, mournful violin. \nThe city keeps nagging, but Cave continues with his ballads, refusing to give in until the last track of Nocturama. Then, Cave mockingly shouts "Babe, I'm On Fire" as a schizophrenic organ becomes increasingly demented. He lists the people who echo his refrain: "the President of the United States," "the sweet little goth" and "the mild little Christian." The list goes on for fifteen minutes, as if Cave is attempting to balance an album so saturated with ballads. Because Nocturama only has ten tracks, additional songs would have been preferable to such a long rant. \nNick Cave doesn't have to remind the listener that he's not Leonard Cohen, though the artists' love of ballad style is very similar. Cave sings "He Wants You" in third person, using optimistic chords. It seems natural to assume Cave is really singing about himself when he sings, "In his boat and through the dark he rowed, chained to the oar and the night and the wind that blowed." With the next song, "Right Out of Your Hand," Cave is even more vulnerable, singing in first person. As night falls on a diseased city, people are disintegrating. Victims are giving birth to their murderers every second. Tiny barren rooms in teetering sky-rise apartments offer the only small pockets of peace. The lucky hide and dream in those lonely prisons.