Nick Cave and the Bad SeedsFrom Her to Eternity

Gaunt and feverish, this plays like a haunted tent revival: scraped-metal percussion, hammered dissonant piano, and Blixa Bargeld's shrieking guitar leaving ragged gaps for Cave's preacher bellow. The title track lurches toward an obsessive crescendo about a man consumed by the woman upstairs. "Avalanche" warps Leonard Cohen into a scraping dirge, and "A Box for Black Paul" sinks into slow, gospel-tinged dread. The 1984 debut where everything that followed took root. Drop the needle and meet the man.