Album Review: Nick Cave ‘Push The Sky Away’. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds new album is navel gazing, world-weary dread at it’s finest.

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After two great sleazy slabs of swamp rock with Grinderman, Nick Cave is back with The Bad Seeds. But it’s minus two long-standing members (Blixa Bargeld and Mick Harvey). Multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis is Cave’s main creative foil this time around.

It seems their collaboration on film soundtracks for ‘The Proposition‘, ‘The Road‘ and ‘Lawless‘ (for which Cave also wrote the screenplays) has seeped into ‘Push The Sky Away’. It shares the same widescreen cinematic dread.

It’s an ambient ice block of an album. Cave still speaks in tongues of biblical salvation and damnation, and sexual fever dreams, but in a quieter tone.

“We No Who U R” stars off with a minimalist electronic beat. But the tranquil tone is offset by nature’s decay; “The trees will burn with blackened hands.”  An apocalyptic reference to  “The Road” perhaps? The chorus has dark subtext as well, which sounds as lovelorn as it does paranoid; “And we know who u r, And we know where u live, and we know there’s no need to forgive.”

“Water’s Edge” is all rumbling bass and seasick strings, where Cave tells an Old-World seaside tale of lust; “as the locals boys behind the mound think long and hard about the girls from the capital, who dance at the water’s edge shaking their asses.”

The oceanic theme extends to other tracks like “Mermaids“. Lyrically it has one of Cave’s more flaccid lustful remarks: “She was a catch, we were a match, I was a match that would fire up her snatch.” Luckily the hypnotic soundscape overpowers it and pulls you in its undertow.

“We Real Cool” is more concerned with the digital age (it’s the first song I’ve heard that references Wikipedia). It starts off with a stuttering bass-line that emanates dread, but collapses into a gorgeous piano laced chorus.

“Jubilee Street” has a bluesy swagger which perfectly supports Cave’s tale of a doomed working girl as told by her unhinged john; “the problem was she had a little black book, and I was written on every page.” It’s also one of the few songs that builds into a full roar instead of sustained unease.

“Finishing Jubilee Street” features a catchy chorus amidst spectral guitars and xylophone tones.

If there’s any complaint to be had, it’s that this album lacks those bawdy, dark humorous asides from Cave songs like “No Pussy Blues” or “Stagger Lee“. The closest he gets is on “Higgs Bosom Blues“;  “Hanna Montana does the African Savannah.” But it’s more disjointed and weird than chuckle worthy.

The title track is one of the finest album closers you’ll ever hear. Eno-ish keyboards and hushed female backing vocals provide thick atmosphere while Cave preaches on flipping the bird to conventional wisdom and on the therapeutic value of lustful noise;  “Some people say it’s just rock and roll/ ah but it gets you right down to your soul.”

Hallelujah.

‘Push The Sky Away‘ is an amazing dark and majestic album from one of Alternative Rock’s finest lyricists. Less swagger, more reflection, but certainly not mellowing with age. Name one millennial sonic wordsmith that could go toe to toe with him?

Yeah, that what’s I thought…

Want to preview or pick up ‘Push The Sky Away‘? You can order via iTunes of Amazon via the links below.

And here’s an interview with Cave with the Guardian.

And speaking of Aussie Alt-rock lyrical geniuses; check out my recent review of Steve Kilbey’s new album.

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