Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Henry's Dream (1992)

Henry's Dream is a good place to start a healthy Nick Cave obsession. It rests nicely between his previous albums dark and brooding mood and his more recent albums theatrical and brooding mood. Just kidding, sort of. The older works seem to embrace the darkness surrounding his life whereas on the more recent albums, Nick seems to be searching for a light, or a way out of the darkness, though still remaining bleak and without much hope. The Bad Seeds are in top form here (as always really) and Cave himself propels his narratives with the seething lash of an evangelist bent on converting the world. But there is no proselytizing or soap box shenannigans with Nick Cave. His is nothing but the most brutal and primitive of human want and desire. He is a great orator of our modern age and rarely can a band or a singer fill the mind with such rich and darkly romantic pictures as to almost awaken the dark corners of ones own mind into reacting, to feeling, to tapping your damn feet and pouring yourself a glass of whiskey to drown in his same sorrows. That is my best attempt at describing what can only truly be described by the man himself. The whole album is classic and hummable and will certainly be stuck with you for a long time if you allow the full weight of the songs to penetrate the mind. The album isnt all doom and decay, there are some poignant love songs here and there.

I'd like to take this time to bring awareness to the new project Nick Cave has begun with members of the Bad Seeds - Grinderman. Nick Cave is reported to be playing guitar on the record and the band is described as "Foul-mouthed, noisy, hairy, and damn well old enough to know better." You can find a link at Detectiefvanzwam and I must say that it is going to be quite a treat. A return to form, so to speak, of the trashcan style of the Birthday Party and the other members bands. Full details can be found here. A release is scheduled for early 2007 which means now is the time to keep your eyes peeled for when Grinderman are coming to a town near you. I am positive it will sell out in minutes.