Caving In To Love
Nick Cave certainly is a man of extremes. After a startling return to the
splatter-happy violence typical of his previous band, The Birthday Party,
on his last album, Murder Ballads, Cave, driven by the twin demons
of a tattered love life and a commercial success (his duets with both
P.J. Harvey--who is subject of at least half of The Boatman's Call--
and with Kylie Minogue, were European hits) that unnerved him, Cave has done
a 180 and headed in the exact opposite direction this time, releasing an
uncommercial album of brooding, hymn-like tales of blighted romance.
The obvious stylistic reference point on The Boatman's Call is
Cave's personal idol, Leonard Cohen (he even uses a Casio, a Cohen
trademark of late, on one track, "Brompton Oratory"). Cohen has
steadfastly maintained his yoked themes of sex and spirituality through
the years, and it is this fusion which also permeates Cave's latest. In
general, since leaving behind his days of surrealistic Beefheartian
freewheeling with The Birthday Party, when he scribbled lyrics out with a
bloody needle and engaged in physical altercations with his "fans," Cave
has slowly moved from his former baroque excursions toward the more
circumscribed artlessness which has always been a trademark of Cohen's.
The Boatman's Call, then, is the album where Nick Cave finally
relinquishes all attempts at fictionalizing, telling us in simple,
unadorned language exactly what's on his mind. As such, it's only
partially successful, because while he may idolize Cohen, Cave doesn't
quite have the Canadian legend's knack for self-analysis, for lyrically
shredding himself to ribbons along with the female antagonists
often present in his songs.
Cave is generally comfortable with the ballad form, however, and
this album hearkens back to the generally restrained and stately
atmosphere of 1990's The Good Son. The album's first single, "Into
My Arms, " is a plaintive, emotional dirge that successfully hits the
Cohenesque nail on the head, melding its twin themes of love and
spirituality in an effortless manner: blackly humourous lines like "I
don't believe in an interventionist God / but I know, darling, that you
do" are certainly worthy of ol' L.C. himself. One problem that crops up,
however, is the relative musical sameness of some of the tracks:
The Bad Seeds, even given the additional presence of ace violinist Warren
Ellis of The Dirty Three, are reduced to the role of minimal accompanists
here, so the tunes where the Cave's lyrics don't rise above that of
standard balladic fare, such as "Lime-Tree Arbour" and the aforementioned
"Brompton Oratory," tend to slide by pleasantly enough, but without making
a memorable impact. One can only speculate as to what Bad Seed
multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey thinks of all this.
Still, there are plenty of moments of inspiration here to remind us of
Cave's past greatness. "(Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For?"
features our self-made crooner aping Scott Walker's delivery from
"Montague Terrace" ("O we will know, won't we?") and actually pulling it
off, while the bleak "Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?," with Ellis's
spookily spectral violin in the background, paints a picture of Cave and
his ex-wife trapped in a meaningless universe, "going round and around to
nowhere." "West Country Girl" provides good gossip content, at least, as
we find that the song's implied subject, former Cave paramour P.J. Harvey,
has a thing for "Spanish fly . . . and monkey gland." Unfortunately,
"Black Hair," again about Harvey, overdoes the main image and finally
falls victim to lyrical cliches and an undistinguished backing track.
While Cave has progressed beyond his usual ploy of merely lyrically
killing off unfaithful or otherwise disappointing lovers, he still tends
to present a one-sided view of relationships: where Cohen uses the song as
a vehicle to by which to implode his ego, delving deep into the
psychic wreckage of his own life, Cave instead uses the song as a method
of ego-protection, falling back on the old ploy of blaming the
party in question for not living up to his romantic notions, as on "Far
From Me," where Harvey is depicted at "the first sign of trouble . . .
running back to mother." When, finally, Cave ends in self-pity, moaning
on "Green Eyes" that "This useless old fucker with his twinkling cunt /
doesn't care if he gets hurt," the effect is somehow less than
one imagines was intended, a comment that can also be made about The
Boatman's Call as a whole.