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Musically, the album is a triumph from first to last.
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It's hilarious, chilling and exhilarating: further evidence of the unique and enviable position Cave finds himself in at 50.
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FilterCave's themes remain unchanged, but his songcraft prowess continues to grow, aided by the finest instrumental backing and production of any Bad Seeds album to date. [Winter 2008, p.90]
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Cave spits out his woebegone lyrics as if he were a Holy Ghost-filled preaching machine leading the world's funkiest revival meeting.
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On Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, rock, country, blues, and post-punk rhythms meld with Cave’s lyrics on sex, death, God, and America to create what could be one of his most perfect albums yet.
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He sacrifices none of his newfound momentum on the fantastic Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, his sharpest, wittiest, most resolute album in over a decade.
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What it all comes down to is that Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a Bad Seeds record that ups the ante once again.
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Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is ultimately a rock record more than it is an ideas record, but on both counts the Seeds bring it like a band half their age.
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It’s a vital record, one that’s Nick Cave through and through, and whether he’s exploring his garage roots or his spooky, narrative tendencies it’s at all points a triumph.
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On Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, Cave weaves yet another tapestry of characters.
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Jangling Jack's back.
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The record is a less sonically abrasive affair than the album Cave released last year with his side-project Grinderman, but it teems with as many musical and lyrical ideas as ever.
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The Bad Seeds sound even edgier and more sophisticated on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, providing a fitting pulpit for their bandleader's ravings.
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Yes, Dig bears little concept or nuance, but it more than makes up for it in raw, oozing passion.
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Even if Prince, Madonna, Paul Weller, Shane MacGowan, Ice-T and Michael Jackson got together to form a freakish supergroup, they’d struggle to make an album containing as much vitality, humour and invention as Cave and his wizened cronies have.
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The band has never sounded better, and Cave seems to have relaxed into the hysteria of his vocal style; like Elmer Gantry singing Leonard Cohen at a tent-revival.
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There's a rolling, free and expansive feel to the album as a whole that is not only one of its most attractive features, but is also the most difficult thing about it to pin down.
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While there are inevitable parallels what with one album following the last so soon, this fourteenth LP from the fluctuating-of-membership Bad Seeds is a bolder creation that its predecessor.
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MojoThe fourteenth Bad Seeds record is willfully untidy and, at times, pretty chaotic. It also rocks like crazy. [Apr 2008, p.104]
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Feral intensity abounds. [Apr 2008, p.98]
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Dig Lazarus Dig!!! delivers a platter that is both powerfully-arcane and invigoratingly-fresh, that serves as possibly Nick Cave’s best ‘main-course’ studio release with The Bad Seeds for quite some time.
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In other words--even though the mood is more menacing than morose--it’s vintage Cave.
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Q MagazineThe 50-year-old's songwriting blue streak continues on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, a triumphant album that merits all three exclaimation marks. [Apr 2008, p.105]
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'We Call Upon the Author to Explain' goes the title of one song, but Cave offers no explanations and no justifications merely another lean, assured set of glamorously gloomy songs.
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Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! should prove an exhilarating listen for most fans of Cave's oeuvre. It has a lot of the rawness and jagged edges of a classic Bad Seeds album, hopped up with off-kilter beats and loads of loops contributed by violinist Warren Ellis.
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Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is even more entertainingly disturbing, a rocking psycho-carnival ride (complete with swirling organ) that clearly nods to Cave's roots.
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It's not every goth-punk fiend who can celebrate his fiftieth birthday with an album as loud, filthy and brilliant as Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
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The WireDig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! sees Cave at his wittiest and most relaxed, though perhaps also most detatched. [Apr 2008, p.53]
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MagnetThe playful Dig!! Lazurus Dig!!! stands among his most mature albums. [Summer 2008, p.98]
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So, while Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a pretty good album and as characteristically lip-smacking as Cave is capable, it’s only engaging in the details which, unfortunately, are hard to hear because Cave’s screaming something about vulvas over top.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 75 out of 86
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Mixed: 7 out of 86
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Negative: 4 out of 86
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Feb 19, 2013
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Mar 6, 2012
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Aug 27, 2010