Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
Critic Score
Based on 32 reviews
2008 Ratings: #10 / 806
Year End Rank: #7
User Score
Based on 324 ratings
2008 Rank: #140
Liked by 31 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
The Guardian
It's hilarious, chilling and exhilarating: further evidence of the unique and enviable position Cave finds himself in at 50.
100
The Observer
Musically, the album is a triumph from first to last.
91
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.
90
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.

90
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.

90
Prefix

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

90
AllMusic

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

90
PopMatters

To call Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! Nick Cave’s best album yet is a matter of opinion certain to raise some protests. But for someone who has always wanted to dive into the man’s songbook headfirst but has never known where to start, it can be said that this latest work is the perfect place to begin your journey into a most enjoyable and provocative catalog and work backwards chronologically from there.

90
musicOMH

Nick Cave is a master storyteller, and DIG!!! LAZARUS DIG!!! continues his tradition of remarkable and provocative songwriting. It is a decadent, meaty opus worthy of slow digestion that emphasises the transient thrills and inevitable dissatisfaction inherent in life.

90
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.

84
Time Out London
‘Albert Goes West’ and ‘Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)’ show Cave and co as spiritual siblings of The Stooges, Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr and Pixies, while even the sweetly lowering ‘Jesus Of The Moon’ subverts Seeds type with a flute. Some may bemoan the record’s looseness; let them – while the rest of us rock out.
84
Pitchfork

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

83
The Line of Best Fit

Dig, Lazarus, Dig! is a welcome return to form from a deservedly enduring musician.

83
A.V. Club

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

80
Record Collector
Sclavunos describes the haunting dreamscape of Night Of The Lotus Eaters a emerging ‘from a spontaneous combustion of set ideas, group improvisation and an entirely serendipitous accident’, which nicely describes this glorious peak of the Bad Seeds’ mesmerising 24- year career.
80
Q Magazine

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

80
Evening Standard
At these moments, he's touched by genius. Like Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen, artists with whom he can be seriously compared, Cave has nothing to fear from old age.
80
The Independent
The backdrops to these narratives and speculations range from churning rock'n'roll vamps, barrages of distorted guitar noise and hypnotic chants, to the shimmering mandolin and viola, caressed with tender breaths of flute, that multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis conjures up for the beautiful "Jesus of the Moon".
80
GIGsoup

This album does ... avoid the clichés that follow so closely behind a collection of catchy songs in very much the same way contemporary rock and roller Josh Homme’s outfit Queens of the Stone Age have always managed to.

80
Mojo
The fourteenth Bad Seeds record is willfully untidy and, at times, pretty chaotic. It also rocks like crazy.
80
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.
80
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!!!

80
Paste
In other words--even though the mood is more menacing than morose--it’s vintage Cave.
80
NME

Just when The Bad Seeds seemed content to settle into middle-age as a cabaret gospel showband – albeit an extraordinary one – they’ve bared their teeth again.

80
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.
75
Consequence of Sound
Everything is approached with a wink and a smile, however because Cave and the Bad Seeds don’t let the words get them down. They just happily spread the message.
66
Coke Machine Glow

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.

60
NOW Magazine

It’s not surprising ... that a number of the tunes on Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! sound familiar.

60
The Skinny

Moments of brooding desolation still lurk in the twilight gloom of Jesus of The Moon and Hold On To Yourself's leering lament but, ultimately, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is too polished and preened to stagger down Cave's own self-made path of rugged righteousness.

60
Under the Radar

For all its foreboding themes, Dig, Lazarus Dig!!! is melodically accessible and a very neutrally pop album.

RakkSmells
70

"Oh yeah, what a good old-fashioned rockin' and, rollin' and, roll-lickin' and, rock...lickin' and, i-it's kind of a comedown after how great the last album was but still, rocks... album." ~MicTheSnare, 2019

Saying a decently strong 7/10 is a comedown isn't saying a whole lot about the album however as Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is still a really good album from the Bad Seeds that truly rocks out. It's sort of a return to their post-punk roots with a cleaner and more polished rock sound, ... read more

Doofy
72

I dig it

JayCrackers
75

Although, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! will never be near the top of my favorite Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' albums, with the whole recording playing it quite safe but ultimately brings there post-punk side out more again for a lovelystraight forward and enjoyable rock album which doesn't have the depths has much has their best records.

Track Review

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! 8.5/10.
Today's Lesson 7.5/10.
Moonland 8/10
Night of the Lotus Eaters 6.5/10
Albert Goes West 6.5/10
We Call Upon the Author ... read more

BluMndy
92

BluMndy Try not to glaze Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

ChoppedNScrewed
86

A really energised Nick Cave album, still with a lot of macabre content but in more of a cartoonish way really. This analogy is maybe a bit of a stretch but if a more serious moments in album like Murder Ballads are a Scorsese film then this album is like a Tarantino film, more surreal and self-indulgent (in a good way) and with a disconnect between the music and the lyrics that makes it a pretty fun ride and gives it its own identity in the band’s discography. Occasionally it ... read more

andy_vicky
80

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! - 9/10
Today’s Lesson - 7/10
Moonland - 10/10
Night of the Lotus Eaters - 9/10
Albert Goes Wets - 7/10
We Call Upon the Author - 8/10
Hold On to Yourself - 8/10
Lie Down Here (& Be My Girl) - 8/10
Jesus of the Moon - 9/10
Midnight Man 8/10
More News from Nowhere - 7/10

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