Don't let the title fool you; "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!," the new studio album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, is the least biblically obsessed record in the band's discography.

It's no wonder fans have come to expect references to religion, death and love in Cave's illustrative lyrics; it's part of his writing "voice" for good reason. As a child, he was steeped in a world that revolved around the Old Testament, and, in fact, was even a choirboy.

During a recent interview with Terry Gross of NPR's "Fresh Air,"
Cave talked about his religious upbringing, and how he used "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" as a way to rebel against that experience.

"As a child, it kind of creeped me out that Christ's greatest miracle was bringing people back from the dead," Cave said. "I basically took the Biblical character and dropped him in New York City as a half comical look at what might happen in the contemporary world."

Having just played two sold out shows in San Francisco, the band will be performing in Portland, OR tonight, Nick Cave's birthday (9/22), and subsequent tour dates are booked in Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, New York City and Washington, DC, through early next month. Catch them if you can, since it may be another 5 years until they come back to our shores.

Here are some of the photos I took of Nick Cave on Saturday night, at San Francisco's Warfield Theatre.