Nocturama is the worst Bad Seeds album, and it’s not even a particularly close contest. In what surely must be an indication of the absurd quality of Cave’s musical output, however, Nocturama isn’t even necessarily a bad album. The biggest problem with Nocturama is that it feels uncertain, lacking a self-assured center or identity. For the most part, the arrangements look back to The Boatman’s Call, while a few moments point uneasily forward to the riotous gospel rock of Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus, but Nocturama lacks both the emotional gravity and invention of the former and the joyful outbursts of the latter.

“Wonderful Life” sets the album’s stage admirably enough, and all the players are properly blocked, but Cave’s repeated invocation of “What a wonderful life!” all the way back on Prayers On Fire’s “King Ink” feels more truthful and, ultimately, vital than it does here. That might be an unfair comparison to draw, but given how interconnected Cave’s lyrical world and songwriting often proves, it doesn’t seem totally off the mark. Too many of these songs feel like drab filler, and too many of Cave’s lyrics scan as uninspired and derivative. (Worst on both counts is “Rock Of Gibraltar.”) Even when the album cranks the settings up to “rock,” it pales compared to other Bad Seeds outings, with “Dead Man in My Bed” feeling like a repurposed “Jangling Jack,” and “Babe, I’m On Fire,” for all its delightful wordplay and far-seeing breadth, failing to justify its overlong scale and undercooked arrangement.

If I were feeling uncharitable, I might close this capsule with something along the lines of, “If I were Blixa Bargeld, I would have left after this album, too.” Of course, I don’t know anything about the circumstances of his departure, and he certainly would have had a lot more to work with on the next album(s), but nevertheless, that’s the mean-spirited jab that keeps springing to mind every time I revisit this album. Nocturama feels like a placeholder or a misfire, and given the fiery sprawl that spills out of every corner of the album that follows, one can’t help but wonder if Cave and his cohorts had a similar feeling.