Nick Cave has lived with a Prince of Darkness reputation for most of his prolific career, but sometimes lost amidst all the albums, screenplays, side projects, soundtracks and other endeavors is the guy's twisted sense of humor. Last year's Grinderman detour was a noisy, sleazy hoot and his reunion with longtime compadres the Bad Seeds on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is just as fun. Not that he is lightening up, but without the melodramatic piano and violin, Cave and crew really play up their loose 1960s garage rock roots, with a particular emphasis on Lou Reed-style pop perversity. When Cave sings of someone who "likes to congregate around the intersection of Janie's jeans" and "opens her up like a love letter and enters her dreams," you can practically see the singer leering with pleasure at his own hyperbolic lasciviousness. Yet with songs like "Today's Lesson," the cacophonous "Albert Goes West" and closer "More News from Nowhere," Cave somehow crafts, in his own words, "a real good time." It's the perfect record for hitting the open road, and as any black-clad badass romantic will attest, there's nothing more fun than that.

-- Joshua Klein