NICK CAVE &
THE BAD SEEDS
Skeleton Tree
(Bad Seed Ltd.)
“Let us sit together in the dark until the
moment comes.”
If that moment is light in any form, it
never arrives. There has never been a
shortage of death in the Nick Cave catalog.
But a different kind of heaviness informs
Skeleton Tree, the 16th album from the
Australian native and his backing band
The Bad Seeds. The recording sessions
were completed after Cave’s 15 year old
son tragically fell to his death, and that
event tragically seems to inhabit every
recorded note. Taken as a whole, the
record could feasibly be perceived as a
single song broken into multiple suites.
The music never revs beyond mid-tempo
and the material seems to bleed into each
successive track. Organs drone and sorrow informs the lyrics that, at times, can
feel so uncomfortably intimate, it feels like
the worst kind of eavesdropping. Cave’s
sinister baritone chews on every syllable,
inviting the listener into the unthinkable
nightmare. Melodies arrive like a black
asp under a new moon, sinking its fangs
into unsuspecting flesh. By the time the
venom hits you, it’s too late. Such a
moment occurs on “I Need You,” when
Cave all but howls “nothing really matters when the one you love is gone.” The
line is emotionally devastating and, with
his precise, poisoned pen, he has unwittingly lured the listener into his heartbreaking, ghastly surroundings. Rarely
has populist art ever been this chilling.
– Curt Baran
6
RICHIE BLACKMORE'S
RAINBOW
Memories in Rock Live In Germany (DVD)
(Eagle Rock)
In June 2016, legendary rock guitarist
Ritchie Blackmore played three concerts as
Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow in Europe;
one in England and two in Germany,
which comprises Memories in Rock — Live
in Germany concert DVD/CD, which features 14 vibrant Rainbow and Deep Purple
classics. It’s a long-awaited return to rock
music for Ritchie Blackmore, as he’s been
currently performing in his merry
medieval band Blackmore’s Night with his
wife Candice, who appears here as one of
the backup singers. Vocalist Ronnie
Romero (Lords of Black) has some big
shoes to fill, as not only does he cover
songs originally sung by Ian Gillan, but
also Ronnie James Dio, Graham Bonnet,
Joe Lynn Turner and David Coverdale
throughout the recording’s almost 2-hour
run time. And he does it with class and
style while injecting his own flair into the
songs. Ritchie’s still wearing those friar
pilgrim hats, but at 71, he plays efficiently
and precisely. The high-definition videography is top notch, consisting of great
closeups and crowd participation shots,
while the audio is just as stellar. All the
prerequisite Blackmore numbers such as
“Highway Star,” “Since You Been Gone,”
“Man On The Silver Mountain,” “Perfect
Strangers” and more are represented here.
The show comes to a close with a fiery rendition of “Smoke On The Water,” giving
the fans exactly what they came for.
– Kelley Simms
8
LAMB OF GOD
The Duke - EP
(Epic)
Try as Lamb Of God might to burn the
Pantera comparisons, the act now finds
itself playing the same part Pantera played
in the alt-rock '90s: The Duke of a floundering genre. Why rock the boat? Last year's
VII: Sturm Und Drang followed vocalist
Randy Blythe's manslaughter acquittal
with queasy hardline riffs and the deepspace isolation of staring down hard time.
It read like out-of-print true crime, not a
stocking stuffer. The affecting "Still
Echoes," "512," and "Engage The Fear
Machine" get the cheap live treatment on
this year's five-track Christmas EP,
Bonnaroo cheers and all. Studio castoff
"Culling" rests on the laurels of a
Sacrament-era groove, even copying Phil
Anselmo's trademark call to "respect."
(Are you talking to me?). As a single, the
title track finds Blythe having washed the
blood from his hands, clean and uncharacteristically spiritual in a mix indebted
more to buttoned-down In Flames than
Farm Beyond Driven. Free from his jail cell,
Blythe has more to say ("I will never die").
But, can we hear him?
– Mike Meyer
5
@ie_entertainer
40 illinoisentertainer.com december 2016
Follow us
on Twitter
Continued from page 44