The recent upsurge of vinyl sales coming as music biz life-saver will see many catalogues given the 180-gram remastering treatment, but Cave revisits the format he was born in (and for) with sympathy and taste.
Remastering again comes from former Bad Seed Mick Harvey, whose work on 2009’s CD reissues installed new depths, while artwork reproduces the originals, including inner sleeves splattered with Cave’s savagely eloquent lyrics.
After the cataclysmic assault of the Birthday Party, he started 1984’s maiden voyage From Her To Eternity (9⁄10) with a skin-crawling rumble through Leonard Cohen’s Avalanche, distinguished it with scabrous ejaculations such as the seethingly malevolent Saint Huck and never looked back as he embarked on his highly personal new mission, accompanied by the unique telepathy of the first of many illustrious Bad Seeds line-ups.
Cave then took his muse to Berlin, bombarding her with Elvis and John Lee Hooker to emerge with apocalyptic blues masterpiece The Firstborn Is Dead (9⁄10), followed by 1986’s harrowingly beautiful Your Funeral… My Trial’s (9⁄10) double serving of soul-searing ballads and widescreen epics such as The Carny, plus a wailingly despondent version Tim Rose’s Long Time Man.
The reissue schedule starts with these first three albums, swiftly followed by 2003’s Nocturama, 2004’s Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus, 2008’s towering Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! and 1986’s cover version detour Kicking Against The Pricks, before the rest arrive next year; all told, gloriously consolidating one of the greatest catalogues in music./o:p
