No More Shall We Part

Let me tell you a story... casting my mind back to one rainy lunchtime, stuck in the office; wishing I was anywhere else - connected to my cd-player whilst reading. A friend handed me the new Nick Cave album "no more shall we part" and said ‘you won't have time to listen to all of it, but listen to track number 3 and let me have it back... you'll be buying it tomorrow.'

He was right -as he was about so many albums. I have to thank Simon for getting me to into John Cale; The Velvet Underground; King Crimson; Brian Eno... But I digress. The moment I first head the velvet tone of the violin on Hallelujah I was held spellbound and it lasted to the end of the song. The song was so relaxed and mellow, and built up to a gorgeous crescendo of angelic voices at the end, an almost mournful, plaintive chorus that left me wanting more!

I cheekily scanned the rest of the tracks, each one building on what I heard before. This was the first time I'd heard anything by Nick Cave and wasn't disappointed (I've since found out that this album is slightly mis-representative of his normal style.. this being his "love" album...). Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow has a mournful (this is a word that's used a lot with Nick Cave...) and beautiful guitar part which harmonises with Cave's piano (god, I wish I was more musical, I could really do this review some justice!!!) God Is In The House is the closest you'll ever get to a ballad from Cave, and on the surface it sounds like a really beautiful set of lyrics... there is, of course, another more cynical edge to it, thank God!

By complete contrast Oh My Lord is more akin to Nick Caves representative style - hard-edged rock. This starts of very low and menacing and builds up to shrieking guitars and violins - great!!

Suffice to say I did go out and buy it, and nearly 8 years on I still love it and every now and then it takes pride of place on my mp3 player...