From Her to Eternity
After theBirthday Partyended in a manner similar to a train collision, frontman Nick Cave emerged from the wreckage and hooked up ex-bandmateMick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld (on loan from the industrial groupEinsturzende Neubauten),Barry Adamson(fresh fromMagazine), and the lovely but corpse-pale Anita Lane.  Thus the Bad Seeds were born, second only to Cave's former band in their ability to create a rumbling caterwaul. What makes the Bad Seeds stand apart, though, are the elements of delta blues that Cave dredges up from the darkest recesses of his black, black heart--blues unlike any you've ever heard before--and hisFaulkner-meets-Lovecraftlyrical obsessions. "Well of Misery" shambles along drunkenly and eventually crumbles under its somnambulant pace. On the title track Cave exhorts, begs, and pleads like a whiskey priest begging for forgiveness after a bender while Bargeld's guitar shrieks and wails like a congregation of devils. Including two of Cave's more inspired covers--Leonard Cohen's "Avalanche" andPresley's "In the Ghetto"--From Her to Eternitycaptures Cave at the noisy intersection between the punk-rock entropy of the Birthday Party and his later incarnation as the gothic Elvis. Amazing, scary stuff.--Tod Nelson