Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Get Ready For Love (Mute)
UK release date: 14 March 2005
The opening track on the Abattoir Blues half of the recent double album, Get Ready For Love could be seen as a precis of much of Nick Cave's work to date. A rowdy intro, lots of preacher-man lyrics that can't possibly fit into the line of music, but somehow do - with "Praise him" from the London Community Gospel Choir adding mayhem in the background - and solid backing from the ever-reliable Bad Seeds holding it all together.
"Most of all nothing much ever really happens / God rides high up in the ordinary sky / 'til we find oursleves at our most distracted / the miracle that was promised creeps quietly by..." As ever, Cave manages to surprise, challenge and raise a smile of recognition all at the same time.
The single comes with previously unreleased tracks from the recent Radio 2 live session: Hiding All Away and There She Goes, My Beautiful World. Radio 2? Gracious me, the days of The Birthday Party seem an aeon ago... but maybe it's Radio 2 that's changed, rather than Nick Cave? Vintage stuff.