Customer Reviews

No More Shall We Part

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is the first Nick Cave album I have bought in a few years. His style changes so much from album to album that you can never know what to expect upon opening a new CD. Admittedly, there have been a couple that I did not really care for. But this album seems to be the next incarnation of Cave's musical life. And if this is where he is going with his music, I'll happily follow.

This album is full of heartache and despair tempered with the subtlety of Cave's vocals. The tone of the songs is carried through their tumultuous music. He struggles with love and infidelity in "Sweetheart Come" and "The Sorrowful Wife". He also takes the plunge into religion and the existence/nonexistence of God in "God is in the House" and "Oh my Lord." These are topics found often in Cave's catalog of songs. This is the kind of album you find yourself searching for at two in the morning during a thunderstorm. Even at two in the afternoon, you will find yourself transported to that place.

I listened to a while ago "Where the Wild Roses Grow" when my friend had visited me. She claimed she adored Nick Cave's voice, and I hissed and said that he was dull and lacked any spark. Oh, but I was wrong. This week was my friends birthday. I went out with another friend of mine to purchase this album for her, since she claimed she loved his voice so much. I brought the CD home and began to listen to it -- I fell in love and kept it for myself. I decided to get her something of heavy metal that she would probably much prefer. THAT is how much I love this album -- and now, I am hooked on Nick Cave. His songs grow on you, and you can't fight the urge to have it in your CD player all the time on those long and dreary days.

"As I Sat Sadly By Her Side" is my favourite song, it's beautifully written and will let your thoughts drift along a country road in your mind. "We Came Along This Road" is also a wonderful song to listen to, and is also another favourite of mine. The rest is also wonderful. However, different songs evoke different feelings in different people.

If you're looking for songs that grown on you, and everytime you put them on you feel as though you are hearing it for the first time -- then this is the album for you.

I've not much to say about this album except that this may well be the culmination of Nick Cave's career. Far more serious and tame than Bad Seeds' earlier outings, "No More Shall We Part" is perhaps the most challenging album for "hardcore" fans, but I find that the maturation of sound and lyrics has captured the band's infinite potential, and then some.

This is a great album. The intelligence of the lyrics alone put this up there with Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks," but it's more personal, and thus more immediate than even that great Dylan effort (and Cave's a better singer). The religious themes of Cave's songs (often allegories, such as "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow"(spiritual blindness)) may take some listener's by surprise, but song craft and story telling quickly take over. In many of the songs, the gentle harmonies of Anna and Kate McGarrigle wrap around Cave's singing, elevating them even further. This assistance is particularly dramatic in "O My Lord."

I think it's fair to assume that Nick Cave, at this point in his career and life, is a Christian. But he's the kind of Christian that doesn't seek a comfortable faith. Like Simone ("Waiting For God") Weil, he sees the importance of the outcast, the outsider, who believes, but on terms that are true to themselves - and to God. The lyrics of "God is in the House" takes direct aim at suburban churchgoers who seek a fear-free life in their "little church," which is of course painted white. Putting God in a manufactured box is ridiculous, and that is Cave's sarcastic point. But sarcasm is only a small part of "No More Shall We Part." Overall, there is the sense of hard won truths in an ongoing journey, delivered beautifully for the listener to ponder over, and maybe even as prompt toward prayer.

As a side note, in a way it's a shame that there's been such controversy over whether or not Evanescent is a "Christian" band (read the lyrics, not their public statements), though I think the controversy is rooted more in that group's hesitancy on how to respond, and whether the wrong response would thus kill their just-starting careers . Evanescent could take some tips by looking at the careers of Nick Cave, T-Bone Burnett, Julie (and Buddy) Miller, the late Johnny Cash, and others (Dylan?). Amy Lee, it's OK to believe - and rock. Stay true, the rest will sort itself out.

The songs flow with a story of his slow descent into madness, and it's lyrics are so well written they're hard to get out of your head. There's nothing that can equal this, even with his later albums... This is the peak, the magnum opus, of his career.

'No more shall we part' is just a pretty good record. Anyone who enjoyed 'The boatman's call' will surely enjoy this one. I would even suggest that it is better than 'The boatman's call' as there are no fillers on it (like 'green eyes' and 'black hair' on 'The boatman's call'). Also there is no lack of 'Bad Seeds' on this one, as there is on 'The boatman's call' wich sounds more like a Nick Cave solo effort. As on all of Nick Cave's albums, the lyrics are extraordinary. Buy it, you won't regret it.

When I was a kid, I used to get this candy called Mamba, which contained soft fruit candy of different flavors. But there was only one flavor I yearned for: Strawberry. The rest was only okay at best, but the Mamba strawberry candies were what made the whole package worth it. And I could bare the rest, as long as the few strawberries were there for me to eat at the end.

I feel the same way about No More Shall We Part in a musical sense. By the end of the album, some of the songs drag and go on for too long. Others tend to sound similar to tracks that came only two songs before it. But Nick Cave more than makes up for it with the small bits of strawberries he sprinkles within the album. Listen to "Love Letter," possibly the the most gorgeous song Cave has yet written, both in melody and prose (both juxtaposing into each other perfectly). Or take the rockers "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow" and "Oh My Lord," where Cave demonstrates how absolutely powerful he is in his songwriting and vocals. And after about four nearly dead tunes, No More Shall We Part concludes, almost apologetically, with "Darker With the Day," a song that will be front-runner in the second Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Greatest Hits album.

Even when the songs as a whole don't work, Cave's poetic lyrics do, as his fans could testify. One trait I have always admired in Cave is his willingless to draw inspiration from any source, even the Bible. Here, Cave reaches into his spiritual gut more than ever, using religious words like he was doing Christian album, yet exposing many of fundamentalist drivel for what it really is. "God is in the House," probably one of the smartest songs Cave has ever written, brilliantly reveals the hypocrisy present in many so-called "perfect" church-going people today, with Cave singing about a town where "there's no place for crime to hide" and "all the kittens are bred white, so we can see them in the light." Funny and insightful, as always.

Nick Cave is one of the truest, sincere searchers in the music industry. Purchase No More Shall We Part, then do yourself a favor and search for other Cave releases. Find the strawberries.

While not groundbreaking this is pretty a respectable collection of songs, and not without humor (an ex-punk rocker singing about needing a nurse! ha ha!). Adult contemporary tunes for kids who grew up with Bauhaus? Some of this reminds me a lot of Epic Soundtracks (RIP, genius songwriter). There are a couple of sappy dull songs on here but most of it is tasteful, classy and imaginitive enough to make you feel all right.
Apple-O

I have been the most devout Cave fan since, first born is dead,s ince then i got hold of his Debut, "From her....." and Birthday party, i love and i mean,LOVE EVERYTHING,the man did until, the boatmans call and no more shall we part!! The two latter arent THAT bad but i dont get that same feeling, that tingle, that lyrical mastery, and texture in his songs that he once had! Better lyrics i have seen from Mr cave, a slightly strained voice, it doesnt seem the NATURAL cave meister we know of old! He is at his best when writing material, like.From her.... First born.... Your funeral...... Tender prey The good son, Henrys dream, murder ballades,let love in and ofcourse his book, And the ...... the man has thoroughly changed me as a person and i just wish others could experience the man and ofcourse his bad seeds, they are just the COOLEST bunch of dudesEVER, (i feel like a bit of a girl writing that,i am 31yrs old) but they are, They are the epitomy of cool!!!! So the The boatmans... and No more....., i just cannot get my SOUL around these.(seems he has run out of demons to possess his crafty soul) Nocturama i hope will change this, but if not, i dont mind that much,he has earned the right to do as he pleases, The man writes as he FEELS, and right now he FEELS like the Boatman.... and No more....... ( i am slightly dissappointed though) COME ON NOCTURAMA!!!!!!!

This is probably Cave's best output since "The Boatman Call." If you don't know his work, think of Tom Waits' intensity and poetic grit, with a better voice and a band that has been with him forever. It's hard to single out songs among the tunes here, every single one has something to offer. Actually the lyrics alone are worth listening to this album, their intensity does not depends on gimmicks nor dramatic fireworks to move you deeply, and the music confirms it.