I first came across Nick Cave at about the time of this album, when a friend made me a mixtape (ask your grandad, kids) which included the manic Saint Huck. I enjoyed that but didn't think much more of Cave, until buying a copy of The Good Son in a sale about ten years later.
From then on, I was bitten, first seeing them at Royal Festival Hall in 1999, where they played Saint Huck for the first time in eons. By then I'd picked up a 'best of' which contained a couple of tracks off this album, and they led me to investigate the entire back catalogue.
If you've read many of these, you'll know I'm not a fan of over-production, and like a more minimalist approach, and this album opens with three dark, sparse numbers before the title track smashes its way in, with the Elvis cover In The Ghetto closing the first half. Then, we stumble slowly and gently into the second half with The Moon Is In The Gutter, before the anarchy and violence of the aforementioned Saint Huck, a quite magnificent seven minutes of manic nonsense. But after that, it's a bit of an anti-climax, especially the overlong A Box For Black Paul.
The CD contains a 1987 version of From Her To Eternity, still worth hearing again (even if it only finished half an hour ago).
4* - a powerful debut for Mr Cave and chums...
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