Trial

Reduced to a quartet for the most part, with Barry Adamson joining Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld, Mick Harvey and Thomas Wydler on only a couple of tracks, the Bad Seeds turn from the interpretive triumph of Kicking Against the Pricks to another strong high, the mostly-original Your Funeral…My Trial. The one cover is a sharp, unsurprisingly dramatic version of Tim Rose's "Long Time Man." As for the rest of the album, Trial shows the Seeds working as, again, a remarkably accomplished and varied act, ever available and ready to explore a wide range of musics distilled into Cave's often dark, always passionate vision. Arguably Cave and company have by now so clearly established their overall style that Your Funeral…My Trial is much more a refinement of the past than anything else, but so good is their work that resistance is near impossible. If anything, the brooding power of the Seeds is more restrained than ever, suggesting destructive endings and overwhelming love without directly playing it.

Although it is an unfinished and in many ways defective novel, Franz Kafka's The Trial has fascinated readers for more than 80 years. Several attempts have been made to film it – notably, by director Orson Welles – and also to turn it into an opera. Danish composer Poul Ruders is the latest but probably not the last person to do so. His librettist is Paul Bentley, who also provided Ruders with an excellent libretto for his compelling operatic version of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.