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Rating:
Reviewing this album means going back, obviously, 12 years, but also reliving the emotions and flavors of a beautiful period in my life where this album accompanied me for a long time; these and other sensations are the minimum that an album should convey to any of us before saying that a record is beautiful, great, or unique.
Emotions aside, "henry's dream" is a great album, certainly not the best (or rather, not the one that earned Cave and his companions the most), but a great album that stands apart from both previous and future ones, produced by David Briggs (famous for his work with Neil Young) and dedicated to the birth of his son "Henry." It is a concentrate of pure rock with a damned flavor, played as it should be without too many useless frills, encompassing an array of melodic ballads with well-written and well-executed songs, thus confirming the great professionalism of the Bad Seeds, who along with Cave's touch, gave birth to songs ranging from love to the basest desires up to death, all told with the formula of a legend and sung with a big, hoarse, and unique voice.
The album begins with a brilliant and perfect "Papa won't leave you, Henry," then moves to "I had a dream," a song of dreamy charm, where a beautiful Hammond prevails. The third track is "Straight to you," a very melodic song perfect for whistling along as Cave engages in a full-blown declaration of love. The fourth track is "Brother my cup is empty," beautiful, a symbol of the ink king's repertoire with a relentless yet almost nursery rhyme-like rhythm. We come to the fifth track, "Christina the Astonishing," the most evocative song on the album, featuring a dominant Hammond plus some additional chorus, with Nick narrating the sad legend of Christina the Astonishing, where delirium and magic reign supreme. "When I first came to town" is a beautiful ballad that somewhat revisits the style of "Straight to you." And here we are at "John Finn's Wife," yet another legend where Nick recounts the events of John Finn and his wife, with the former meeting his end, supported by excellent violins that crescendo into delirious and passionate tension. The finale is pure excitement; the title itself is a great introduction to what our ears will hear, "Jack the Ripper," which I think is the most beautiful song on the album, with Nick's voice at the limits of perfection supported by splendid choruses from Blixa and company. I recommend this album to anyone who doesn't know Cave and doesn't know where to start getting to know him, but also to those who already know him and have never listened to these splendid 9 tracks.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
03 Straight to You (04:35)
All the towers of ivory are crumbling
And the swallows have sharpened their beaks
This is the time of our great undoing
This is the time that I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time
The light in our window is fading
The candle gutters on the ledge
Well now sorrow, it comes a-stealing
And I'll cry, girl, but I'll come a-running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
Once again
Gone are the days of rainbows
Gone are the nights of swinging from the stars
For the sea will swallow up the mountains
And the sky will throw thunder-bolts and sparks
Straight at you
But I'll come a-running
Straight to you
But I'll come a-running
One more time
Heaven has denied us its kingdom
The saints are drunk howling at the moon
The chariots of angels are colliding
Well, I'll run, babe, but I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time
05 Christina the Astonishing (04:51)
Christina the Astonishing
Lived a long time ago
She was stricken with a seizure
At the age of twenty-two
They took her body in a coffin
To a tiny church in Liege
Where she sprang up from the coffin
Just after the Agnus Dei
She soared up to the rafters
Perched on a beam up there
Cried "The stink of human sin
Is more that I can bear"
Christina the Astonishing
Was the most astonishing of all
She prayed balanced on a hurdle
Or curled up into a ball
She fled to remote places
Climbed towers and trees and walls
To escape the stench of human corruption
Into an oven she did crawl
O Christina the Astonishing
Behaved in a terrifying way
She would run wildly through the streets
Jump in the Meusse and swim away
O Christina the Astonishing
Behaved in terrifying manner
Died at the age of seventy-four
In the convent of St Anna
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By nikko89
It is a challenge, yet another challenge of a black soul, a journey, a dream, a nightmare.
Cave is suffocated by his own evil, he staggers, a black arrow has poisoned him, the germ of evil has metastasized.
