Staff Reviews

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Tender Prey (remastered)

Review by Chris Nicholls

In an age where reissues are a quick and easy way to make a buck from nostalgic record buyers, Tender Prey is a welcome chance to reappraise a phenomenal artist in a thoughfully presented package. »

Buy now from:

remastered limited cd / dvd set featuring the original album, plus a 5.1 surround sound version, five b-sides, the videos for 'the mercy seat' and 'deanna' and an installment of 'do you love me like i love you', a specially commissioned film by iain forsyth and jane pollard. the dark, poetic troubadour tendencies hinted at in cave's work as early as his first album's cover of leonard cohen's 'avalance' blossom on 1988's 'tender prey'. in a style recalling cohen and tom waits, cave ups the lyrical ante considerably here. on gory detail-oriented, literate tunes like 'up jumped the devil' and 'mercy', cave's second life as a novelist (he would soon author a book) is obvious. here, the distance he achieves from his inner demons allows him to focus more on crafting his personal horror stories, making him seem like the edgar allen poe of the rock world. the balladic approach introduced on the covers album 'kicking against the pricks' also develops here, on melodic, piano-based songs like 'slowly goes the night' and 'watching alice'. on these, cave recalls an earlier, similarly iconoclastic balladeer, scott walker. 'tender prey' proved a turning point for cave, and it's one of his strongest albums.
description from www.roughtrade.com