After the career high that was 2001's No More Shall We Part, Nick Cave has made a surprisingly speedy return to the studio - maybe too speedy. Stylistically, Nocturama is a much more varied collection than we've become used to from pop's prince of darkness, taking in blues, rockers and even an alt.country track along with the more traditional windswept ballads for which he has become best known. The result is an agreeably unpredictable song cycle, which keeps the listener guessing as it wanders down a series of unexpected paths. For all that, Nocturama represents a slightly disappointing addition to the Nick Cave catalogue. The vibe is the same as ever - tales of doomed romanticism told by an Old Testament prophet - but somehow it just isn't carried off with the same conviction as before. And the 15-minute closing track, 'Babe I'm On Fire', is an incoherent rant that really doesn't work at all. Nocturama is still worth hearing of course, since Cave's idiosyncratic talent makes his failures more interesting than many artist's successes. But newcomers should certainly not start here.

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