Tender Prey is the fifth album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, released in 1988. It would perhaps signal the culmination of the earliest period of the group, marked by the debt paid to the tumultuous years of Cave's previous post-punk group The Birthday Party but more importantly notable for being released around the height of Cave's heroin addiction. Indeed, the groups first few outings together
From Her To Eternity, The Firstborn Is Dead, Kicking Against The Pricks and
Your Funeral... My Trial saw a group still trying to find their own unique voice, a melting pot of influences ranging from American folk music, British post-punk and the blues given the black humour treatment through Cave's sardonic writing. It wasn't until
Tender Prey the height of this sound would be fully realised, however.
The album feels like a man exorcising all his demons, at times dark and punishing, at others existing in a realm of pure melancholy, sometimes both of these at once. When ex-junkie Cave fans describe
Tender Prey as an album they just cannot listen to (take my word for it that I have met at least one), I would certainly be willing to romanticise it in terms of channeling the depth of emotions that come with heroin abuse, at least superficially.
The Mercy Seat is a terrifying, confronting start, but observes the story of a man on death row struggling with the reality his situation from an otherwise cathartic eye which feels all the more powerful for it.
Up Jumped The Devil seems to almost revel in glee in comparison, with its piano stabs and hazy bassline as Cave seems to play some sort of mad villain figure, talking about how he was doomed from birth to be the bad guy -
"
Oh no don't go Oh no
Oh slow down Joe
The righteous path
Is straight as an arrow
Take a walk
And you'll find it too narrow
Too narrow for the likes of me
Who's that hanging from the gallow tree?
His eyes are hollow but he looks like me"
It's almost cartoonish in a Tom Waits sort of way (speaking of I would kill to hear the man do a version of this) but still an incredibly dark and powerful piece of music for it.
Deanna is something of a bouncy rock track, but still it's keys are haunting somehow and Cave's delivery take it to another place which seems to hint at some sort of tragic disappointment through all of it's celebratory nature.
Mercy, City of Refuge and
Sugar Sugar Sugar are a suitable fusion of the post-punk and folk influences the Bad Seeds were best known for at this point to varying results, but it is
Watching Alice and
Sunday's Slave which are two underrated highlights for me. The former is a drowsy ballad heavy on piano, the latter a similar affair centered around a strong lyrical hook -
"
Tuesday sleeps in a stable
Wednesday's in chains
Tuesday gathers up the crumbs under the table
Wednesday dare not complain
My heart has collapsed on the tracks of a run-a-way train
Just whisper his name
And here comes Sunday's slave"
The final track
New Morning feels like just that, waking up after one of the most depressing experiences of your life, contemplating it, lingering on it, maybe fearing what is to come just a little. A perfect note to go out on, but an unsettling one nonetheless.
Tender Prey is a rough album, and was incredibly difficult to write according to the band.
The Mercy Seat itself took dozens of takes and Cave to finish writing his first novel
And The Ass Saw The Angel to finalise, and the rest of the album would have been no less challenging. It would mark the end of the first period of The Bad Seeds, that of the "junked-up post-punk period", as the following album
The Good Son would feel like a new morning of its own seeing a stronger focus on developing tighter songwriting and discarding angsty, post-punk influences in favour of branching out more into a unique brand of alternative folk music. As it stands though,
Tender Prey is one of the most convincing documents of the Bad Seeds early years, a regular fan favourite which is often claimed to be their best album. It is certainly one of their most emotionally draining, that is for sure.
