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100

Alternative Press

This journey to Nocturama's not to be missed. [March 2003, p.88]

Launch.com

At first listen a morose rumination on the many shapes of love, the album slowly unfurls as a grand, almost gothic epic of vast proportion and luxurious significance.

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Splendid

This is one of Cave's best album in years, if not an immediate candidate for a career highlight.

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E! Online

Often funeral-march slow, but there are also flashes of passionate energy.

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Amazon.com

Nocturama feel[s] messy, unpredictable, and even a little dangerous--qualities Cave's music hasn't had in far too long.

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Blender

Piano ballads and muscular thrash that hearken back to his days with proto-goth ghoulfathers the Birthday Party. [#13, p.91]

New Musical Express

It's what The Velvet Underground would've sounded like if they'd been psychopaths. With a heart.

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Village Voice

Cave's molasses ballads take you to a warm spot where the big bad world's cynicism gets disabled and the numb parts thaw.

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Mojo

Cave has managed to move away from the stifling atmosphere and the false captive environment of No More Shall We Part and somehow create a Cave world where The Bad Seeds can indeed stretch, howl, riff, sniff, grind and bark with a freedom unheard on record since 1993's Live Seeds. [Album of the Month, Feb 2003, p.84]

Playlouder

As ever with the great man, this is a record that rewards the attentive, and repetitive listener.

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Junkmedia

Cave proves himself to be a continually fascinating and vital songwriter.

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Pitchfork

But with two (admittedly gigantic) exceptions, Nocturama reneges on its promise-- something's still missing from most of these tracks.

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Rolling Stone

Most people this pretentious or literary don't rock so hard or write tunes so good.

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CultureDose.net

Nocturama is as slight and as pretty as a walk through the snow on a sunny Winter day.

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Dot Music

At times, 'Nocturama' feels like he's trying too hard. Some of the ballads suffer this way, as if Cave's straining to recapture the gravitas of 'The Boatman's Call' without excessive revelations or dramatic contrivance.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

Mostly in the quieter mode of his past few efforts, Nocturama presents songs of faith and devotion in the face of doubt, again demonstrating his newfound gift for understatement and the smoky croon.

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Uncut

This is his conscious attempt to inject a sense of urgency probably not heard on a Bad Seeds album since 1994's Let Love In. [Mar 2003, p.96]

Almost Cool

Another semi-spotty release.

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Austin Chronicle

The missing link between Murder Ballads and Boatman's Call.

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Neumu.net

Nick Cave, no mistake about it, is still a major talent, and Nocturama isn't nearly as bad a mid-career flop as Lou Reed's Mistrial or David Bowie's Never Let Me Down.... But nevertheless, this is also far from essential Nick Cave, as most longtime fans will immediately discern.

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Q Magazine

Trouble is, they're often only half-good songs. [Feb 2003, p.94]

Stylus Magazine

There is flatness where once there was majesty; there is garbage where once there was gold.

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PopMatters

Nocturama isn't an awful record, just a problematic one, mostly due to the fact that the spontaneous studio atmosphere under which he's trying to operate doesn't allow for the careful crafting that bore his prior masterpieces.

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All Music Guide

Everything is predictable and sounds like something Cave has done before. The Bad Seeds' edges are smoothed over by the too-slick production; Cave's lyrics are not provocative or funny or much of anything worth hearing.

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Delusions of Adequacy

Nocturama isn't the weakest album in Nick Cave's canon, but it's far from being a particularly good one either.

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The Wire

There's little to set the sombre half-tones of the Cave and Seed world alight with suspicous glimmers. [#228, p.59]

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes

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

Brendan D gave it a9:
It's taken me a long time to come to this conclusion, but Nick Cave is the greatest artist of all time. He did anger exactly right with The Birthday Party, a band that basically took "Lady Godiva's Operation" and turned it into a fucked-up party. When the Birthday Party exploded/imploded/blew up, the Bad Seeds picked up the slack, and they've been releasing classic album after classic album since 1984. Maybe the classic records have just made me a fanboy, but I honestly believe that Cave has done better since the mid-'90s than he did ever before. "Murder Ballads" is one of the best albums of all time, and "No More Shall We Part" is, far from the cringe-worthy schlock most old-school Birthday Party and early Bad Seeds fans want to call it, a beautiful, heartfelt, and darkly sinister record. "Nocturama" is not as good as either of these. It is, however, pretty damned good. "Babe I'm On Fire" isn't lame or cringe-worthy, and it's not fun. It's Cave's weird sense of humor that shine through, however, and you can never be 100% sure if he's sincere or not. I prefer to believe not, but it's hard and beautiful and dark all the same.

mads l gave it a2:
surely the worst cave album ever! even the rather dreadful "no more shall we part" somehow shines in comparison to this half-baked and bland album. The ridiculous finale of "Babe I'm om fire" is not the fun it was probably intended to be, it is just lame and cringeworthy.

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