Pitchfork

Nick Cave turns 50 this year, and with his receding hairline and even gaunter appearance of late, he could easily settle into his rock twilight years, wherein the edginess of his career-making early work is smoothed over for a mature AOR radio-friendly sound. In fact, his decision to employ a gospel choir on his 2004 double album, Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, might have been a step toward adult contemporary schmaltz, were it not for the album's psychotic meditations on artistic inspiration and good-versus-evil. The one-time shitkicking Birthday Party singer and rabble-rousing Bad Seeds frontman may have refined his attack, but even as his musical range has expanded, his subject matter remains visceral without being gratuitous and intelligent without being academic. Balancing vulgarity with suavity (the man looks good in a suit), he's turning expectations of middle age inside out, making a mockery of all the gone-soft musicians who have fortressed themselves against obsolescence with standards albums and reunion tours.

So, every time you play Cave's new double-live 2xCD/2xDVD set, a little part of Sting dies. That alone should be enough to keep it in constant rotation, but The Abbatoir Blues Tour is actually a solid entry in Cave's canon, one of too few live releases from the brooding bard, perhaps even besting the so-so Live Seeds from 1993, which has several tracks in common. Abbatoir/Orpheus was a particularly strong album, one that made good use of its double-disc sprawl and filled every song with intriguing musical and thematic ideas. If at times this even bigger set seems a little redundant of its studio predecessor, it's fascinating to see how Cave and his coterie have adapted these ideas to the stage and how new songs sit alongside earlier material like "The Weeping Song", "Deanna", and "Stagger Lee", which noisily disembowels the American blues legend. Between this set, the upcoming badassathon of his side project Grinderman, and his screenplay for last year's Aussie epic The Proposition, Cave still has fire in his belly.

Shot to suggest the dynamic of a barfight, the two DVDs-- recorded at London's Brixton Academy and Hammersmith Apollo-- emphasize the physicality of the Bad Seeds' performance, specifically the concentration with which each member contributes to the larger sound. Halfway through each lead track, they're already soaked in sweat-- all except Cave, despite his jet-black suit and manic Elvis swagger. I suppose the lights of a London stage can't compare with the intensity of the fires of hell. As on the studio albums, the backing singers mock, taunt, curse, and defy Cave, his characters, and even the audience, adding slick retorts to "Stagger Lee" and genuinely gorgeous uplift to "O Children". On the other hand, the music seems all the more potent for having a live audience present during its creation. That shouldn't be surprising, considering that Cave has always played the part of a preacher and invested his songs with a sort of rapturous conviction. In this case, singing along to "Red Right Hand", apparently a crowd favorite, would seem to be the equivalent of speaking in tongues.

Like Abbatoir/Orpheus, these two DVDs showcase two sides of the band: the Brixton disc features harder, harsher Abbatoir songs like "Get Ready for Love" and "There She Goes, My Beautiful World", while the much shorter, somewhat anticlimactic Hammersmith set echoes the softer, more balladlike Orpheus, with songs like "Nobody's Baby Now" and "Wonderful Life" (albeit not a single song from either Abbatoir or Orpheus).

Of course, there are no tidy categorizations: the Birthday Party-era "Wild World" begins quietly, with Cave at his piano, but erupts into a show-closing din. Warren Ellis' flute set begins "Nature Boy" softly, even sweetly, but quickly becomes dissonant racket, and "Red Right Hand" veers wildly between a lovely guitar/piano duet and abrupt bursts of abrasive noise. The backing singers goad the skronk of "Stagger Lee", lending it the staginess of a showtune, which makes the imagery all the more visceral. The infernal dread of "Red Right Hand", the vulgar theatrics of "Stagger Lee", and the hoary pastoral of "Breathless" don't merely cohabitate here, but feed off one another to create a beautiful grotesquerie and reveal the breadth of the band's endeavors.