Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Nick Cave (vocals, piano); Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld (guitar); Warren Ellis (violin); Conway Savage (organ); Martyn Casey (bass); Thomas Wydler (drums). Additional personnel: Kate & Anna MacGarringle (background vocals). Producers: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Tony Cohen. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, England in 2000. This album is closely related to its predecessor, THE BOATMAN'S CALL, in that it mines similarly reserved piano-ballad territory. Cave's been fiddling with this sort of thing since THE MERCY SEAT's "Watching Alice," but he seems to have adopted it here as his prevailing modus operandi. The major difference between NO MORE SHALL WE PART and its predecessor is that the lyrics are less overtly relationship-oriented. Instead, Cave offers Jacques Brel-like denunciation of overzealous Christians ("God is in the House"), morality plays ("As I Sat Sadly by Her Side"), and of course, tall tales of terror in the grand Cave manner ("Hallelujah"). Despite the wide range of subject matter, the lone exception to all the quiet balladry is "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow, a slow-burning snarler that recalls the Bad Seeds' nastier days with its harrowing metaphor for emotional distances (a trick not accomplished so neatly since the Bee Gees' "New York Mining Disaster"). If you're looking for the hellfire-and-brimstone Nick Cave of years past, look elsewhere. But if you're prepared to accept Australia's black sheep troubadour as Brian Ferry's (or Burt Bacharach's) evil twin, step into the deceptively calm waters of NO MORE SHALL WE PART with confidence.