Nick Cave’s steady creative growth from The Birthday Party’s frantic intensity to The Bad Seeds’ more rounded and contrast-rich work hit a new peak with 1994’s Let Love In, his eighth studio album with this distinctive ensemble. Today the record is nearly overshadowed by the inclusion of “Red Right Hand”, whose skittering groove and Biblical portent have been used to palpable effect in various Scream movies and as the theme song to TV’s Peaky Blinders (it’s also been reworked by everyone from Arctic Monkeys to Snoop Dogg over the years). Yet the immediate scene-stealer is the dub-inflected ballad “Do You Love Me?”, opening the record with a Greek choir of backing vocals supplied by Beasts of Bourbon’s Tex Perkins and Birthday Party co-founder Rowland S. Howard. Other familiar faces from Australian underground rock show up on the album too, among them Dirty Three violinist (and future Bad Seed) Warren Ellis and The Triffids’ David McComb. True to the album title, many of these songs hinge on love as a central theme, including the seesawing “Loverman”, later covered by Metallica. But this being Cave, romance and devotion are not pat subjects to muse upon but tangled, often thorny terrain to wade through at one’s own personal risk. “Nobody’s Baby Now” is gorgeous to the ear, with questing lyrics that turn to the great works of poetry, religion and human behaviour for the answers to lost love. At the same time, it’s relatable in its own poetic flourishes: “Hers is the face I see when a certain mood moves in/She lives in my blood and skin.” Cave and collaborators go all in on brooding, velvet-draped atmosphere right across Let Love In, from drummer Thomas Wydler’s dramatic timpani on “Red Right Hand” to multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey’s vibe-drenched fluency on varying accompanying turns. Out the front is Cave, hovering over the organ or piano like a rogue preacher bent on leading his congregation astray. But for all his gnashing, fervent presence on tracks like “Jangling Jack” and “Thirsty Dog”, he shows just how much crossover appeal he can muster—and maintain. Cave was less than two years away from tapping Kylie Minogue for the unlikely global hit “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, and there are strong hints at just how darkly dashing he could be to a wider audience in the lush romantic foreboding of “Red Right Hand” and “Nobody’s Baby Now”. Before his fruitful foray into classic murder ballads and enduring songs like “Into Your Arms” and “People Ain’t No Good” on 1997’s The Boatman’s Call, here is Cave realising his full potential as a dark-hearted interpreter of some of the most enduring themes in Western music and literature alike.