To Lose My Life...

Alan Moulder mixed it, and Buller arranged a 20-piece orchestra (later described as 25). The band entered the studio with only five demos, "Death", "E.S.T.", "Farewell to the Fairground", "From the Stars" and "Unfinished Business", and wrote the rest there. "Farewell to the Fairground" dated from the Fear of Flying era. Singles were "Unfinished Business", "Death" (September 22, 2008), "To Lose My Life" (January 12, 2009) and "Farewell to the Fairground" (March 2009, UK 33). The release date appears as January 12 in one Wikipedia article and January 19 in another. It is UK Gold (229,575 copies), reached 146 on the Billboard 200 and charted in eleven countries.

Reception divided: Metacritic scored it 58, AllMusic gave 4 of 5, NME 8 of 10 and the Guardian 2 of 5, while Pitchfork gave 4.0 and The Line of Best Fit a 0 percent score. Cave said eight of the ten songs use death-related words but are not really about death; the word expresses loss and how people cope.