Nick cave and The Bad Seeds new album, `The Boatman's call' is a passion suite reflecting the eternal search for faith, both personal and spiritual. The result is a series of concise songs, clear but never simple, detailed but never cumbersome, personal but with a universal resonance. As befits a series of devotional songs, they are as intimate as a private prayer.

`The Boatman's Call' is emotionally and musically naked. It is Cave's most personal record to date. In a complete contrast to their previous album. `Murder Ballads', and album of fictional narratives, Cave moves his attention from brooding vices to the challenged virtues of love and faith, and dispenses with fiction altogether. What remains is a stripped back set of songs that offer a series of reflections on the conflicts and vagaries of a single person's adventures into the ever precarious fields of faith, desire and devotion.

Cave has always been a gifted lyricist, both intricate and intimate but perhaps he has never been as direct and poignant as on this present recording. In casting his gaze upon varieties of love he doesn't let it's inherent mystery escape in a simplistic manner but details it's hopes, desires, sadness' and sorrows, recalling the infamous opening lines of Tolstoy's Ann Karenin, "All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after it's own fashion."

But mere lamentations don't make a melancholy, that most resonant and bittersweet comfort of an emotion. With his previous album, `Murder Ballads' Cave extinguished, at least temporarily, his interest in the numerous Babel-like languages of violence, and the tall stories of fictional narrative. On `The Boatman's Call' he finds that tales of love and the voice of melancholy too has many tongues and many manners.

"There, in those four wonderful prose poems of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, I slowly reacquainted myself with the Jesus of my childhood, that eerie figure that moves through the gospels, the Man of Sorrows, and it was through him that I was given a chance to redefine my relationship with the world. The voice that spoke through me now was softer, sadder, more introspective. Nick Cave, `The Flesh Made World', on BBC Radio. Within the Christ story lies the tests and trials, disappointments and seeming contradictions of the human experience, it's purpose and attempts at harmony, whether it be of a spiritual or personal nature. Since both spiritual and personal experience implies both longing and sorrow these are natural subjects for an act of creativity, and within this lie the magnificently rich arenas of melancholia to which Cave is attracted.

Nick Cave has long held interests in The Bible, most recently with particular fondness for The New Testament. He remains fundamentally interested in his own spirituality, as opposed to the laws ordained by the establishments of organised religion. It is a type of faith best expressed by Thomas, in the Gnostic gospel, "the kingdom is inside of you and it is outside of you," which Cave paraphrases in the chorus of his song, `There Is A Kingdom'.`Lime Tree Harbour', `Into My Arms', `Brompton Oratory' and perhaps also `Are You The One That I've Been Waiting For?', can be seen as spiritual songs. They have a serenity and solemnity that would befit a hymn. Yet they are also love songs, of devotion and hope.

Where Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds have previously elaborated and perverted standard classical forms of folk and popular music invigorating tired formulas, on `The Boatman's Call' they illuminate the majesty within slow songs. The album seeks grace in its poise and solemn in reflection, and reaches it. Cave's voice and his singing have been an under acknowledged facet of his art. He has always been a most expressive singer, and on this recording he shows extensive versatility in detailing very particular emotions. The Bad Seeds appear to play by one rule alone to implicitly serve the song. The present line-up is the most consistent since the beginning of the band. Throughout all nine albums they have deftly cut the tongue out of all manner of musical styles and consistently found a voice of their own in it's place.

From the beginning to the conclusion the intent of `The Boatman's Call' was to retain the fragility, and hence intimacy, of the particular sentiment of the given song. The music hereby remains without disguise, neither cloaked in bombast nor self- pitying drama. It is always sparse, often stark, and it's haunting resonance undoubtedly lies in it's restraint.

Nick Cave still remains answerable only to his muse, never fulfilling the expectations of others. He has long abandoned all precepts and conventions of what his music should and should not be limited to. Likewise, The Bad Seeds remain a major group of enlightened and enlightening souls.