Nick Cave: No More Shall We Part : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Well, he's at it again, goth balladeer Nick Cave, with his taste for literature and history, for music as text-delivery system and for settling in behind the piano like an undead John Cale and belting out his peculiarly sentimental fantasies of terror, madness and feminine redemption. The best of these twelve new tracks are simple, lush torch songs, such as the title tune and the ravishing "Love Letter"; or they hearken back to Cave's dark-troubadour heyday, as on the horror story "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow." For better or worse, Cave fears no musical, lyrical or emotional excess, whether refashioning white gospel as an erotic paean ("Oh My Lord," indeed) or snarling at self-righteousness in "God Is in the House." And, as the ballad "Sweetheart Come" shows, he can still weave bolts of colloquial clarity into the velvet tapestry that take your breath away. (RS 868 -- May 10, 2001)

ARION BERGER