#8-- NO MORE SHALL WE PART

Nick Cave has been going the longest and the hardest of any of the musicians on this list--with the Bad Seeds since '81 and the Birthday Party since '76. Probably longer than any of the previously mentioned musicians have been alive.

With legacy acts like this, the watershed moment usually comes fairly early on in their career: yes, Morrissey's still making records, but it's not like there's been any revelations since The Queen is Dead. With Cave, however, it's hard to even identify a singular watershed. 1988's Tender Prey epitomizes the darker, grinding side of Cave's work, 96's Murder Ballads his pitch-black senses of humor and narrative.

2001's No More Shall We Part--released after a 4-year hiatus, following the bleak, naked apocalypse of The Boatman's Call--is Cave at his most mature, most emotionally powerful, and the height of his songwriting talent. There's nothing on here to match the brutal sexuality of "Deanna" or the horror of "Song of Joy," but the incredible love and loss throughout it is astonishing. After twenty-five years of hard work as a songwriter, Cave finally wrote the album he was born to.

The whole thing is wintery, melancholy. It's not a sad album--there's moments of incredible tender love, and sly comedy in "God Is In The House." It's an album of post-desolation, though, of quiet recovery, an album made of slight smiles and gentle touches. There are only a few times that it really cuts loose (helped greatly by the contributions of Warren Ellis on his banshee violin), and the quietude of the album empowers them to unbelievable heights.

Moreso than anything, however, Cave's lyrics shine. From the sarcastic exultation to "get down on our knees and very quietly shout: 'hallelujah'" to the cheerfully bitter poetry of "Darker With the Day" ("a steeple tore the stomach from a lonely little cloud"), No More Shall We Part stands as one of the incredibly rare albums that could almost be read, which could stand on its own as a work of poetry.