CD: The Underground Youth – Montage Images of Lust and Fear

As Nick Cave has edged ever further towards mainstream acceptance with each of his recent Bad Seeds’ albums, so he has created something of a gothic-blues vacuum that is itching to be filled. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by The Underground Youth.

Hence, while the band’s previous releases have had something of a tinge of Spacemen 3-like psychedelic drone rock, new disc Montage Images of Lust and Fear changes tack completely and comes on like a tribute to The Birthday Party and the early albums of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

The album opens with the down tempo “Sin”, with Craig Dyer intoning “I’ll come back for your love”, while his wife, Olya lays down a plodding beat, before jacking things up a bit for the more lively, “I Can’t Resist” and strutting rockabilly of “Blind II”. However, it’s on recent single, “The Death of the Author” where the Cave-isms are so obvious that the listener might be mistaken for thinking that the track is some lost Birthday Party tune. The bass starts up, glass smashes and Dyer howls through a tale of finding himself where “I haven’t even got the corn to refill this drink” while watching the author of the title drink himself into oblivion in a bar and then get stabbed to death while stumbling home. The song might be a bit Nick Cave-by-numbers but it is nevertheless fine stuff and will nudge many listeners into wishing that Cave was still turning out these kind of tunes.

Indeed, Montage Images of Lust and Fear might be a fairly transparent tribute to Nick Cave’s early sound and lyricism, but with the man himself about to set out on a fan-friendly questions and answers, punctuated by a few tunes played solo on a piano tour around the UK, there is surely a vacancy in the musical firmament and The Underground Youth fill it very comfortably.

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