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.

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100

The Guardian

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Prefix Magazine

On Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, Cave weaves yet another tapestry of characters.

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Austin Chronicle

Jangling Jack's back.

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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.

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Pitchfork

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

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!!!

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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]

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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.

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Paste Magazine

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Magnet

The playful Dig!! Lazurus Dig!!! stands among his most mature albums. [Summer 2008, p.98]

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.

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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.'

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 58 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Andrew C gave it a10:
Really wanted to give this ten but one track really stinks. My first posting gave it a 9 but 10 outstanding tracks deserve the top mark. Sad thing is I have made a point of avoiding Nick Cave and I feel pretty stupid about that.

Katy J gave it a10:
I thought this record was amazing the first time I listened to it. It's even better the 150th time. Every track on the record is, well... perfect. EVERYONE should have this!

David S gave it a5:
I have to agree with Chris M -- overall this just isn't a very exciting album. And I like Cave, and think he's put out some very good albums, but the songs on this record do not come close to his best. I'm not sure why his fans are so rabid; it seems that in their loyalty, they are proclaiming this album to be great, when in fact it seems they are simply rationalizing mediocrity. Listen to "The Good Son" or "Tender Prey", then tell me if this current album is anywhere near the quality of those releases!

José R. gave it a9:
Well, I must confess it took me three listening (maybe I got accustomed during the last 10 years to Cave the crooner) to completely assess the real quality of this great album. So patience, my friends!

Chris M gave it a5:
This a very bland album - I think critics and fans are so enamoured with Cave that he can't do no wrong. While this isn't wrong, it certainly isn't Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus, No More Shall We Part or Let Love In. Like Nocturama, DLD lacks passion and a sense of urgency that CAve has something he wants to tell us.

Alex Alex gave it a9:
You'll wind up listening to the tracks over and over again. Favorite of the year...so far.

Matt E. gave it a10:
Beautiful album, sort of heavy and humid atmosphere, quite different from the Grinderman album.

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