Stop It--You’re Killing Me : With tongue somewhat in cheek, Nick Cave dishes out a dastardly set of epic ballads dealing in love and murder.

Comedy is murder, goes the old show-biz cliche. But in Nick Cave’s twisted artistic universe, the opposite is true.

As leader of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, this dramatic and original singer-songwriter has spent the past decade documenting romantic obsession and frustration with imagery that has ranged from titillatingly noir-ish to downright horrifying.

On the Australian band’s new album, “Murder Ballads,” Cave’s dark romanticism reaches its apex. Already a smash on college radio in the U.S., the album consists of lyrical, lushly orchestrated narratives about love, lust, and, yes, violent homicide. The gory ends that these characters meet could give fresh meaning to the phrase “the devil’s music.”

Discussing the album in his Manhattan hotel room, though, Cave offers little evidence of being possessed by a demonic muse.

Granted, his gaunt face and shock of black hair don’t exactly make for a cherubic look. But he’s neatly dressed and displays a relaxed, low-key sense of humor--which he says is the key to putting his most recent work in perspective.

“Essentially, ‘Murder Ballads’ is a comedy record,” Cave, 38, says with a shrug and a puff on his cigarette. “It’s not supposed to be a serious look at murder and its social ramifications. It really ended up being a record about storytelling more than anything else. The murder side of it is treated quite lightly. Overall it’s quite funny, I think.”

Cave pauses under a questioning gaze and finally acknowledges that there are some “genuinely nasty” songs on the album.

Perhaps the singer is alluding to “O’Malley’s Bar,” a brooding tune about a bloodthirsty maniac who takes out all the patrons and staff at his local pub, blowing Mrs. O’Malley’s head into a bowl of dirty dishes as his coup de grace.

Or to “Henry Lee,” a tender duet featuring Cave’s friend PJ Harvey as a spurned woman who does in the object of her affection with a penknife.

“Where the Wild Roses Grow,” the first single from the album, pairs Cave with a woman who might be considered much less of a kindred subversive spirit than Harvey: Kylie Minogue, the Aussie soap opera star turned chirpy pop diva.

The blond, doe-eyed Minogue is a huge star in Australia and Britain, and Cave readily admits to having been “kind of obsessed” with her.

“I’ve watched her career very closely,” he says. “I actually started writing songs for her, but I never felt the time was right to send them. Then when I made this record, I found something that seemed appropriate. She was very happy to do it, and the way she committed to the project was amazing.”

In “Wild Roses,” Cave’s character bashes in Minogue’s head with a rock. Nonetheless, he reports happily, the two have become good friends since recording the track.

Unlike Minogue, PJ Harvey had bonded with Cave before working with him, mostly through phone conversations. In fact, Harvey is among a number of fledgling modern rock icons who have cited Cave’s influence in recent years--a trend that Cave responds to with casual modesty.

“I don’t know what to say about that, really,” he says, smiling. “I mean, I guess [Harvey] and I deal with certain similar issues. I’m a huge fan of hers as well.”

Cave--whose legacy dates back to the late ‘70s, when he formed the post-punk outfit the Boys Next Door in Melbourne--has lived in England since 1980, when he led the Birthday Party, a cult favorite known for its raucous, bombastic blend of rock, punk and blues. Before breaking up in the mid-’80s, the group signed with Mute Records (now distributed by Elektra). Cave subsequently formed the Bad Seeds, a more sophisticated vehicle for his morose sensibilities.

With “Murder Ballads,” the Bad Seeds have broken new ground commercially. Daniel Miller, president of Mute Records, said the album has already sold more than twice as many copies internationally as its predecessor, 1994’s “Let Love In,” though the only figure the label will release is 1 million for the album and single combined.

“He’s made more commercial-sounding albums before,” Miller muses. “But I guess this is the right time for him.”

Part of Cave’s inspiration for making “Ballads” was a desire to get away from the sort of painful introspection that marked “Let Love In,” an album that coincided with the breakup of his marriage to fashion stylist and art director Vivienne Cameiro, with whom he has a 4-year-old son named Luke.

“My state of mind was quite bad at that time,” Cave says. “And the songs I was writing reflected that. But I wanted to push that approach to one side and write a record where I didn’t have any emotional attachment--a series of songs about invented characters.”

However detached Cave may feel from these new songs, the graphic language and imagery on “Ballads” may ruffle a few feathers among those who oppose profanity in popular art. But the singer insists that no criticism could offend him more than the charges of misogyny that have been leveled at him in the past.

“The worst thing for me is to be criticized for being politically incorrect,” he says. “I find that type of censorship to be the most insidious, and the most terrifying. As an artist, I write exactly how I feel about things. Sometimes I feel angry at women--that’s an honest feeling. I write other songs that show a deep love for women.”

Cave has acknowledged heavy use of heroin in the past, but has cut back significantly since assuming shared custody of Luke, who lives with him in London three or four days a week.

“It’s much easier for me to write when I’m on heroin,” Cave says matter-of-factly. “I don’t care what anybody tells me. But when I take it, everything except for my writing suffers, and I’m not prepared to have that happen anymore. Especially with a child. I’m a much better human being without drugs. I can actually have a relationship with somebody.”

Can this mean that Cave will be writing songs with happy endings in the near future? Well, the singer’s already written an album’s worth of new material, which he hints is a little more upbeat than we might expect: “When I do fall in love with someone, I tend to write songs that are straight-out celebrations of that particular person.”

But don’t expect anything too celebratory of life in general.

“My music does have a very unforgiving view of the world,” Cave admits. “It just does. I don’t feel that my role is to congratulate the world for being the way it is.”

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