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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds


8.7

based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 40 votes
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Rate this album

Official Artist Site

The latest album for the alternative rock band from Australia was inspired by the story of Lazarus rising from the dead, as well as Harry Houdini.

LABEL:	Mute
RELEASE DATE:	08 April 2008
DISCS:	1 disc
GENRE(S):	Rock, Alternative

NOTES: Original UK release 3 Mar 2008.

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Observer Music Monthly

Musically, the album is a triumph from first to last.

100

The Guardian

It's hilarious, chilling and exhilarating: further evidence of the unique and enviable position Cave finds himself in at 50.

Filter

Cave's themes remain unchanged, but his songcraft prowess continues to grow, aided by the finest instrumental backing and production of any Bad Seeds album to date. [Winter 2008, p.90]

Entertainment Weekly

Cave spits out his woebegone lyrics as if he were a Holy Ghost-filled preaching machine leading the world's funkiest revival meeting.

Dusted Magazine

He sacrifices none of his newfound momentum on the fantastic Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, his sharpest, wittiest, most resolute album in over a decade.

All Music Guide

What it all comes down to is that Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a Bad Seeds record that ups the ante once again.

Slant Magazine

Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is ultimately a rock record more than it is an ideas record, but on both counts the Seeds bring it like a band half their age.

Tiny Mix Tapes

On Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, rock, country, blues, and post-punk rhythms meld with Cave’s lyrics on sex, death, God, and America to create what could be one of his most perfect albums yet.

No Ripcord

It’s a vital record, one that’s Nick Cave through and through, and whether he’s exploring his garage roots or his spooky, narrative tendencies it’s at all points a triumph.

Austin Chronicle

Jangling Jack's back.

Hot Press

The record is a less sonically abrasive affair than the album Cave released last year with his side-project Grinderman, but it teems with as many musical and lyrical ideas as ever.

Pitchfork

The Bad Seeds sound even edgier and more sophisticated on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, providing a fitting pulpit for their bandleader's ravings.

The Onion (A.V. Club)

Yes, Dig bears little concept or nuance, but it more than makes up for it in raw, oozing passion.

Boston Globe

'We Call Upon the Author to Explain' goes the title of one song, but Cave offers no explanations and no justifications merely another lean, assured set of glamorously gloomy songs.

Village Voice

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! should prove an exhilarating listen for most fans of Cave's oeuvre. It has a lot of the rawness and jagged edges of a classic Bad Seeds album, hopped up with off-kilter beats and loads of loops contributed by violinist Warren Ellis.

Hartford Courant

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is even more entertainingly disturbing, a rocking psycho-carnival ride (complete with swirling organ) that clearly nods to Cave's roots.

Rolling Stone

It's not every goth-punk fiend who can celebrate his fiftieth birthday with an album as loud, filthy and brilliant as Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

Mojo

The fourteenth Bad Seeds record is willfully untidy and, at times, pretty chaotic. It also rocks like crazy. [Apr 2008, p.104]

Spin

Feral intensity abounds. [Apr 2008, p.98]

Delusions of Adequacy

Dig Lazarus Dig!!! delivers a platter that is both powerfully-arcane and invigoratingly-fresh, that serves as possibly Nick Cave’s best ‘main-course’ studio release with The Bad Seeds for quite some time.

Paste Magazine

In other words--even though the mood is more menacing than morose--it’s vintage Cave.

Q Magazine

The 50-year-old's songwriting blue streak continues on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, a triumphant album that merits all three exclaimation marks. [Apr 2008, p.105]

Uncut

The band has never sounded better, and Cave seems to have relaxed into the hysteria of his vocal style; like Elmer Gantry singing Leonard Cohen at a tent-revival.

Dot Music

There's a rolling, free and expansive feel to the album as a whole that is not only one of its most attractive features, but is also the most difficult thing about it to pin down.

Drowned In Sound

While there are inevitable parallels what with one album following the last so soon, this fourteenth LP from the fluctuating-of-membership Bad Seeds is a bolder creation that its predecessor.

The Wire

Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! sees Cave at his wittiest and most relaxed, though perhaps also most detatched. [Apr 2008, p.53]

New Musical Express

Even if Prince, Madonna, Paul Weller, Shane MacGowan, Ice-T and Michael Jackson got together to form a freakish supergroup, they’d struggle to make an album containing as much vitality, humour and invention as Cave and his wizened cronies have.

cokemachineglow

So, while Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a pretty good album and as characteristically lip-smacking as Cave is capable, it’s only engaging in the details which, unfortunately, are hard to hear because Cave’s screaming something about vulvas over top.

Under The Radar

For all its foreboding themes, Dig, Lazarus Dig!!! is melodically accessible and a very neutrally pop album. [Spriung 2008, p.74]

NOW Magazine

It’s not surprising, then, that a number of the tunes on Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! sound familiar. Besides the ones that sound like rewrites of Iggy Pop and Leonard Cohen rewrites, Cave and crew aren’t above recycling their own work--'More News From Nowhere' is just a riff on 'Deanna.'

The average user rating for this album is 8.7 (out of 10) based on 40 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tom F. gave it a10:
Amazing!! Brilliant!!! I have no other words for this album. Best album of 2008 so far.

Isaac R. gave it a2:
Hate to say it... but this really bored me. It was torture trying to finish the album waiting for the punch, but all I got was a nudge.

Hugh M. gave it a10:
If you never liked Nick Cave I guess you won't like this, Marc G! Not sure why you bothered to vote! This album is GREAT, not only is Nick fabulous, but The Bad Seeds have got to be one of the tightest bands going around.

Eric O. gave it a10:
Upon listening to Nick's new disc, two aspects become readily apparent: 1. His side-project "Grinderman" left him (and by association his music) rejuvinated- he and the band haven't sounded this tight and energized since "Let Love In"!!! 2. The days of piano balladry, epitomized by the brilliant "Boatman's Call" and everything subsequently released, are OVER!!! The Bad Seeds blast through these tunes like a whirlwind; the drums are faster, the guitar work more angular, and the backing vocals are like nothing you've heard on a Nick Cave album before!!! I can't begin to fathom where Cave can take his band next, because it will be hard to improve on this release- it's definitely the best thing he's done since "Boatman's Call", and probably one of his top five best discs ever (alongside "The Good Son", "Kicking Against the Pricks", From Her To Eternity" and "Your Funeral, My Trial")!!!

Oliver C. gave it a4:
I like the title track, everything else sounds aged and boring like all of Nick Cave's stuff.

Mick C gave it a9:
A Bad Seed album hasn't hooked me like this since "Let Love In". The whole thing is brilliant, and it sounds like his partaking in the Grinderman thing has done him the world of good.

Iman L. gave it a9:
Wow -best album since Vampire Weekend. Lazarus is the single of the year.

Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds