I picked this up (Abattoir/Lyre) because several of you were raving about it, but my God, it sounds terrible. Distorted and compressed- how do you stand it?

Not many good things to say about Arcade Fire, either. Pah. C'mon, guys, buy some new tape or something.

fp

Yep, upon listening to Lyre/Abattoir again I have to agree, it dooes sound like shit in many ways, not just on the technical side. I was watching the "Pleasure Heads' Birthday Party DVD and was reminded just what a force Nick Cave was-lyrically and musically. While I don't suggest for a minute that he should still be doing stuff like 'Hamlet Pow Pow Pow' or 'Deep In TheWoods', to me you can hear a direct lineage from all that stuff via 'From Her to Eternity'->'Your Funeral....My Trial'->'Henry's Dream'->'Boatman's Call'. Yep, times change and these albums are alll different from each other, but the passion, the wit, the characters and the Caveness are all there....to my ears, I'm sorry, but I just can't hear it now; maybe I just don't get it though.

Pah.

If you don't think it is, that's cool, but I'm not about to change how much I love it.

yeah, this now holds the #1 place in the listmania i keep meaning to get around to submitting. its great. history will smile on this album anyway, so dont worry about "getting it" right away.

Sonically not in the forefront, but Abattoir Blues has some superb tunes on it. I haven't even gotten to the 2nd disk yet.

Yeah, the second disk is so good that after I played it the first time I've had a hard time going back to the first! You need to get yourself a more forgiving system Finchy!

Davey,

Has anybody mentioned that that avatar is a bit fru-fru?????????????

Well, now that you mention it I did hear some talk. But I figured they were all just envious of my large obner. Now you're telling me that they were snickering at me? Hehehe, but doesn't the description below for my little avatar critter just sound like the story of my life? Oh well, I'm about due for a new one anyway

Cute, cuddly, and horribly wrong... It's the Happy Tree Friends! They may be sugary sweet but there's no way they'll escape their horrible fate! What chaos will these critters experience next? Check out our episode selection to find out! When it comes to animated mayhem, nothing beats Happy Tree Friends.

Funeral is an interesting listen, then on the sixth go around it floored me and became my number one of this year. I’m never going to just listen to one song as I think it best as a whole. I wonder if this feeling is going to last or is it just a temporary thing? I feel the same way as Tiny Mix Tapes feels about this album, they wrote my review of it for me.

Have nothing to say about Nick Cave.

"There she goes my beautiful world" alone does it for me. But hey, I grew up in a church to some degree. I used to love going to the gospel services, rather than the combined protestant worship service. Yeah I dunno...

I have nothing good to say about Funeral.

KPH

Just a question to those of you who like the new stuff: do you listen to a lot of early Nick Cave stuff as well, like Birthday Party and first 5 Bad Seeds? Not being elitist, but one thing that seems to be happening is another real division amongst the Cave fans I know. This happened between 'Tender Prey' and 'The Good Son' (I think both records are great, by the way), where some folks wrote him off for the slicker more conventional style of 'The Good Son' which widened his fan-base so much. Dunno-does it matter? Are we labouring this a bit (me mostly!!), sorry for being a total geeek!!! Hell, actually no I'm not........happy new year.

It's easily in my top 5 of the year. Maybe it's because I don't have the history with Nick Cave that you do, Perkele... but a great song is just a great song. And I think both discs of FULL of great songs. Get Ready For Love There She Goes My Beautiful World Breathless and several more I could name, if I had the disc in front of me. I just think it's fucking great... BETTER than Boatman's Call.