Photo by Brandon Hirsch

Nick Cave has shaved his mustache since the last time he brought his longtime band The Bad Seeds to town, but he’s still terrifying. The gaunt, bottle-black, 55-year-old Australian bandleader-screenwriter-novelist-etc.’s headlining set at the Music Center at Strathmore last night might’ve been the loudest gig the striking venue, best suited to delicate music like that proffered by opener Sharon Van Etten, has ever hosted.

Cave had come to push Push the Sky Away, a quieter, more contemplative record than the last few he’s made with the Bad Seeds or their less polite subcommittee, Grinderman. Even so, the six-strong Bad Seeds, the most prominent member of which is the pirate-styled graybeard violinist, guitarist and violin-sized guitarist Warren Ellis (not the comic book writer, although you can imagine them sharing a brain), spent much of the 18-song, 105-minute performance turned up to eleven.

Cave began boldly, with four consecutive songs from the new record, the kind of thing you can do when you play a venue that makes lyrics discernible. Push the Sky Away has been out for less than a month, but the crowd seemed already to know the songs intimately. The set and album opener, “We No Who U R” might look like a Prince tune, but it’s a sinister ballad. Its follow-up, “Jubilee Street,” started as a whisper but swelled steadily in volume in tempo until the Bad Seeds were raging at the sea. It was a thrilling performance, but it showed us the top of the band’s range too early.

The dynamic of a slow, quiet song growing louder and LOUDER and faster AND FASTER was in danger of sliding into schtick as the band reprised it on other new songs (“Higgs Bosson Blues”) as well as warhorses (“The Mercy Seat”). A mid-show trio of ballads (“Your Funeral, My Trial,” “Love Letter” and “God is in the House”), at least one of which appeared to be a spontaneous response to a shouted request, helped restore balance. Plus, it’s funny to see Cave stick his carrying-around microphone in the pocket of his suit jacket when he’s seated at the piano.

Even sans ‘stache, Cave remains among the most hypnotic frontmen in music. He stalked the front row, all crooked knees and elbows, bouncing like a marionette with a severed string, swaggering like a 150-lb. man with a 140-lb. cock. We welcomed the throng who swarmed the stage during “From Her to Eternity” gesturing for them to come closer and even grasping their hands and pulling them towards one another.

“I just realized this isn’t the one-thirty club,” he remarked after the Milton-quoting “Red Right Hand.” He quickly corrected the famous venue’s name, adding, “It’s the time difference.” He didn’t quite smile, but it sure sounded like a joke.

In fact, the vintage part of the setlist closely replicated that of the Bad Seeds’ most recent visit to the 9:30 Club, in October of 2008. (Grinderman played there in 2010.) Last night, songs from Kiss the Sky Away replaced the tunes from 2008’s Dig!!! Lazurus Dig!!!, which was ignored entirely, but the others—“Deanna,” “Papa Won’t Leave You Henry” “Love Letter,” “Into My Arms”—were largely the same, all immortalized on live albums gone by. We always knew Cave has standards; it would appear his catalog has standards, too.