With No More Shall We Part, Nick Cave's follow-up
to 1997's The Boatman's Call, the former Birthday Party frontman
continues to expand the frontiers of his music to an unpredented degree.
This is, simply put, a beautiful album: Cave's musings on life and love
are the expressions of a mature songwriter, without the sentimentality or
gratuitousness that mar similar expositions from lesser artists.
Musically, No More Shall We Part is sophisticated, complex, and
genre-defying; one could almost imagine hearing some of the ballads in a
piano bar, except that then the songs might rock out, or take on layers of
orchestral complexity, at the most unexpected moments. Cave had a hell of
a lot of collaborators on this album, and with additional instruments such
as organ and violin, one could easily imagine the result turning schmaltzy
or saccharine, but it does neither. The love songs are simply that,
without irony or exaggeration, and as anyone who's ever heard an
overwrought power ballad knows, that's quite a trick. Give this one to
someone you love.
-- Originally appeared on Gothic.net, June 2001