Mick Harvey - Two of Diamonds

Mick Harvey's fourth solo release is much like Nick Cave's The Good Son - both are infernal cocktail-music machines, paving the road to Hell with sad and desperate ballads. Interestingly, only two of the selections are original, yet the album still manages to have a sense of unity that makes authorship irrelevant. "Sad Dark Eyes," although written by 1960's Australian group The Loved Ones, was performed frequently by the Bad Seeds. Alongside this we find a slow, brooding version of Elmer Bernstein's title song from the film Walk on the Wild Side that would have made a fitting overture to that CD's "Mercy Seat." Two of Diamonds plays like an autobiography of influences, not only for Harvey, but for Cave and the rest of the Bad Seeds as well. [www.mickharvey.com]