It took me a long time to really understand what the big deal with Nick Cave was. For several years, the towering Australian with impossible, tall black hair was at the peripherals of my music vision. I paid him no mind, even when people would mention him. All I knew was that he was a music fixture. He was one of those draped monoliths, the kind you don't bother to uncover even though you always feel like you should.
I had then received a number of his albums from a friend. I don't know if it was the fact that I got so many at once or that my ears wanted something different, but nothing really stuck to me. I even saw his performance in Wings of Desire. Interesting constructions of noise and storytelling, but nothing slap-in-the-face profound. About a year later my friend tried once again, giving me remastered versions of two of Cave's albums. I took them home and gave them both a hard listen.
It was at this point that Cave and his Bad Seeds finally, after years of indifference, broke through. It was in the form of From Her to Eternity. It's difficult to describe why I became taken with this jagged, broken antique of an album. I suppose it's because the execution of the pounding instrumentation and the venomous lyrical moan are handled with equal care. On repeated listens, I found it impossible to resist the door-thud bass and crumbled distortion of "Cabin Fever!." The way Cave desperately wails, "The captain's forearm like bunched-up rope, with Anita wrigglin' free on a skull'n'dagger, and a portrait of Christ, nailed to an anchor etched into his upper...," it snared its way viciously into my ears and, this time, I thoroughly enjoyed the torment.
From Her to Eternity plays out like some sort of condemned cabaret. Cave is the serpentine host, spinning the fates of unscrupulous and destructive individuals. His sneer is so apparent that it could be mistaken for revelry.The Bad Seeds dance a chorus line in the background, providing jaunty slabs of noise from broken pianos, jackhammers and glass. The title track is particularly ragged, Blixa Bargeld's gravel-mixing guitar spilling out as Cave sing-talks, "And she is shinning it down the vine, out of her nightmare and in to mine".
I feel like From Her to Eternity exemplifies what it means to successfully integrate the aesthetics of noise and found sounds into well-told rock music. Dissonance is a fickle mistress but when married to a strong story and an undeniable presence, it can be one of the most worthwhile things you'll ever hear in your life.
