According to a note on his website, the inspiration for the title track from this, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' fourteenth studio album, was a childhood memory of being told the story of the Lazarus miracle in which, for those less familiar with the New Testament, that Jesus fella brings a man called Lazarus back to life. The young Cave apparently wondered whether Lazarus would actually have been as thrilled by his resurrection as Christ's followers always assume. I'm not sure you'd necessarily realise that from the lyrics to the song - possibly because Cave decided his Lazarus would live in New York, and then mixed in a load of references to the life of Harry Houdini - but none of that stops you appreciating that this is a brilliant song, both musically and lyrically infectious, oblivious of what Cave might actually be singing about. It was the title track that first got our attention early in the year, and our love for it meant we were anticipating the new Cave long player even more than we normally would be. So imagine our joy when [a] the album arrived and [b] it was consistently brilliant throughout. True, 'Dig Lazarus Dig' probably remains a stand out track, but the album as a whole is proof that Cave and his Bad Seeds are still capable of both innovating and producing something quirky, catchy and musically grand. One of Cave's best albums to date in my opinion, and certainly one of our albums of the year.
MORE>> MySpace
Losing track? You can keep up with the CMU team's top ten albums of the year on the CMU website here.