Abattoir Blues & The Lyre Of Orpheus - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Rating: 6/10
Sound Quality: 320 kb/s
Format: Mp3
Record Label: Mute
Year Released: 2004
Album Covers: Included
Pass: radiodada
Links: rapidshare (Disc 1 - Abattoir Blues), rapidshare (Disc 2 - The Lyre Of Orpheus)

About the Album
Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus is the 13th studio album released by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It is a double CD, with 17 songs (9 on Abattoir Blues and 8 on The Lyre of Orpheus), and was released on the 20th of September 2004.

About Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian rock band with multinational personnel, fronted by Nick Cave. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was originally formed in late 1983 by two former members of the Australian band The Birthday Party: Nick Cave (vocals, songwriter, keyboards, harmonica) and multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey. They were joined by a semi-fluid group of bandmates, including Einstürzende Neubauten member Blixa Bargeld (guitar,) Hugo Race (guitar), former Magazine member Barry Adamson (guitar, bass, piano), and briefly Birthday Party alum Tracy Pew (bass). After some studio work, the band's premiere performance was held on New Year's Eve, 1983, in Melbourne, under the name Nick Cave - Man Or Myth?, followed by a tour. The band then briefly called themselves Nick Cave and the Cavemen before adopting the Bad Seeds moniker in reference to the final Birthday Party release, The Bad Seed E.P. The group soon recorded their debut album, From Her to Eternity, released in 1984.

The name of the new project indicated the shift in Cave's role from band member, as in The Birthday Party, to band leader, and coincided with his shift in songwriting style from expressionism to detailed lyrical narrative. The group has been through many personnel changes, with Cave and Harvey remaining the constants. Cave separated from long-time girlfriend and credited Bad Seed lyricist Anita Lane in the mid-1980s and began a relationship with Elisabeth Recker. While in Berlin, he released four albums with the Bad Seeds: The Firstborn Is Dead; Kicking Against the Pricks; Your Funeral, My Trial; and Tender Prey. Kicking Against the Pricks was the first album to feature the drumming of Swiss Thomas Wydler, who is the longest serving member in the band beside Cave and Mick Harvey.

In 1987, the Bad Seeds made an appearance in the Wim Wenders film, Wings of Desire. In 1990, the band collectively eliminated hard drugs from its diet, relocated to Brazil, and released The Good Son. Their next record, 1992's Henry's Dream, was the first to feature current members Martyn Casey and Conway Savage. Following it came 1994's Let Love In.In 1996, Cave and the Bad Seeds released Murder Ballads. It includes "Henry Lee", a duet with British rock singer PJ Harvey (with whom he had a brief relationship), and "Where the Wild Roses Grow", a duet with Australian pop idol Kylie Minogue. The latter was a mainstream hit in the UK and in Australia, winning three ARIA Awards including "Song of the Year". Their next album, The Boatman's Call (1997), is marked by a radical shift away from archetypal and violent narratives to biographical and confessional songs about his relationships with Carneiro and Harvey. It was also his first full album to be centered around his own piano playing. Cave then took a short break to rehabilitate from his 20 years of heroin and alcohol abuse, during which time he married. The band resurfaced with No More Shall We Part in 2001.

After the release of the 2003 album Nocturama, which failed to excite reviewers, Bargeld announced he was leaving the Bad Seeds to devote more time to Einstürzende Neubauten, leaving Mick Harvey as the only original member still in the band, other than Cave himself. The next year Cave released his first double record - the acclaimed two-disc set Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. In 2005, Cave and the Seeds released B-Sides & Rarities, a three-disc, 56-track collection of B-sides, rarities and tracks that had appeared on film soundtracks. Cave told Billboard that apart from his album with his other venture Grinderman (nicknamed Mini-Seeds, because it consists of Seeds members - see below), he has recorded the band 14th studio album between June and August 2007. "It’s quite strange to have the two bands going at once because my head is kind of very much in the new Bad Seeds record,” Cave says, “but I finished that and now I’m going to make a new Grinderman one, I think. I just like making records."In October 2007 Cave was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. During his acceptance speech he cheekily took it upon himself to also induct the Australian members of the Bad Seeds (excluding Hugo Race), plus the members of The Birthday Party (excluding Phill Calvert).

In March 2008, the band released their 14th studio album, titled Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, inspired by the Biblical story of the resurrection of Lazarus of Bethany by Jesus Christ.Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds also released an exclusive "Live Session" EP through iTunes in April 2008, recorded at the legendary Air studios on 2nd March as part of iTunes' "Live From London" series.Despite initial reports that the Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! tour would exclude North American venues, it was reported on April 29, 2008 that the band will be playing dates across the United States and Canada in Fall of 2008. On May 3rd 2008, during the Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! tour, Shane MacGowan joined Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds on stage to perform "Lucy" at Dublin Castle Ireland.

The double album was recorded by Nick Launay at Studio Ferber in Paris in Spring 2004 by The Bad Seeds line up of Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Conway Savage, Jim Sclavunos, Warren Ellis, and James Johnston. It was the first album by the band in which Blixa Bargeld did not take part. Cave decided to split drumming duties for the two albums, having Sclavunos drum on Abattoir Blues and Wydler on The Lyre of Orpheus.

The album's release was shortly followed by the Abattoir Blues Tour, which took place around Europe between the 3rd of November and the 5th of December 2004.