Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
Album: B-Sides And Rarities
Label: Mute
Tracks: 56
Website: http://www.nickcaveandthebadseeds.com

To complete the superbly executed Bad Seeds' reissue programme, this revisit of the three-CD B-Side & Rarities set simply replaces the box packaging with a fold out digipack.

Typically, such packages are completist-only trawls of the vaults to tread water while the act in question works up their latest opus, or exercises in wringing a few extra quid out of the pockets of die-hard fans. Very often studio experiments, cover versions, remixes and demo versions are left off albums for very good reason - they're not up to scratch.

However, with Bad Seed Mick Harvey curating this is no ordinary barrel scrape and Cave's pre-occupations are given full rein in the dark corners of his career overview. God and the devil feature prominently as does a cast of unsavoury characters from the slickest to the sickest that the underbelly can provide cover for. (I'll Love You) Till the End of the World from Wim Wenders' 1991 film is a true gem, a song to sing along to, epic in scope and heartfelt in its devotion.

Scum hilariously lambasts a less than complimentary reviewer, O'Malley's Bar (delivered in three parts with a reprise) is a delightfully violent murder ballad and the version of Where the Wild Roses Grow with Blixa Bargeld singing Kylie's part takes the song into another dimension. Rainy Night In Soho finds Cave right at home in Shane MacGowan's song, as they both are in shambolic duet on What a Wonderful World.

Of course, much of Cave's lyrical imagery is grotesque, gruesome and over-wrought - all the things the Bad Seeds' playing isn't, handling the easy demands of a simple tune as readily as the multiple time signatures and sonic right angles of the most complex, cinematic material.

Leonard Cohen Tower of Song is give sensitive treatment, as is Roy Orbison's Running Scared and the traditional King Kong Kitchee Mi-Mi-O, but the meat of the matter is in tracks that may have eluded some fans such as the alternative version of Red Right Hand recorded for Scream 3 and the unissued There's No Night Out In Jail.

A righteous treat.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk