By this point, there isn't much more that can be said about Nick Cave. A post-punk punk who evolved into one of music's elder statesmen, he's an eclectic, respected artist who has both the audience and the critics on his side.
Over the last decade, Cave has published books, made soundtracks and albums, starred in films (mostly about himself, his family and his music) and suffered some truly harrowing tragedies. He has also found strength in writing partner and gloriously bearded multi-instrumentalist supreme Warren Ellis, and has continued to work and tour tirelessly with his band, the Bad Seeds, who, on this recording, are Cave, Ellis, Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Jim Sclavunos, George Vjestica and Carly Paradis. Colin Greenwood and Luis Almau also guest. It's a long list of collaborators.
But from and through all this pain and confusion and survival, Cave has crafted some of the most touching, personal and self-effacing music of his career, and on his latest release with the Bad Seeds, Wild God, that streak of excellence continues.
Although this is the first Bad Seeds album since 2019's Ghosteen, Wild God follows the same trajectory that Cave's last three albums — 2016's Skeleton Tree, Ghosteen and his 2021 solo collaboration with Ellis, Carnage — started: mostly spoken word vocals that lack his trademark growl and violence but that still struggle with grief, acceptance and memories, featuring a strong gospel influence complemented by choirs and minimalist instrumentation.
On opening track "Song of the Lake," Cave's unmistakable voice speaks and croons overtop lightly distorted drums. It's serene but unsettled, with Cave intoning, "Oh my darling, where will we go? / Never mind, never mind / And what do we do now? / Oh, never mind, never mind / Oh, my sweet darling, never mind." It might seem resigned, even aloof or apathetic, but it's surprisingly affecting.
The gospel continues on "Wild God," Cave extolling the virtues and failures of a towering figure that he sees both within him and everywhere around him. Cave sings, "'Cause I'm a wild god flying and a wild god swimming / And an old sick god dying and crying and singing," simultaneously conjuring the beginning and end of it all. "Cinnamon Horses" is the album's most melancholic tune, but even it can't hide Cave's newfound hope. "I told my friends that life was good / That love would endure if it could" he sings, and we instantly believe him because we have to. Thinking the opposite would be too horrible to comprehend.
Wild God is dark, but it's also jubilant, even poppy, and very much focused on the self. Almost every song addresses the "I" and "me," and even those that don't seem to be speaking to and about the narrator. Cave doesn't hide his presence, and that's what people love about his music: the torment and violence and pleasure is his, and he's not afraid to show it, to burn it, to scream it. While his albums have certainly become a bit more subdued as he's experienced more of life's trials and tribulations, the rawness never falters. He openly flays himself for our listening (dis)pleasure, both romanticizing and admonishing his struggles while exorcising all those demons that plague his heart and mind.
"Frogs" namedrops troubadour Kris Kristofferson, a vision of him walking by Cave and kicking a can, while "Joy" is a prayer to the earth, to a spirit, to someone, asking for a semblance of respite from pain and sorrow. There is an answer, a flaming boy, a ghost in giant sneakers who says to Cave, "We've all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy." It is brutal and beautiful and so powerful that the lump rising in your throat will probably be shared by everyone who listens. It's the sound of hope in a tortured, burning world; begging, hoping, asking for joy and love, for Cave, for all of us. The track echoes the album's overall mood, an intense but joyous atmosphere that is spiritual, jubilant and life-affirming. For a Bad Seeds album, it's downright positive.
The instrumentation throughout is often minimal and consistent, long repetitive sections that drift and drone and twinkle, allowing Cave's lyrics, their impressionistic reality, to take shape. The complexity comes from the words, while the music is a vessel that carries them, often gingerly, to the listener. While some might find it monotonous, even tedious, others will find it hypnotic in its simplicity. Although there are outliers (particularly "Final Rescue Attempt" and "Conversion"), for the most part, the album revels in its own straightforwardness, and the band makes it sound effortless.
Album highlight "Long Dark Night" is a mournful, crashing, yet ultimately major-keyed affair that recognizes that darkness is always around us, always possible and present, but it's up to you to subvert it, to fight it, to overcome it. Cave is at a point where he wants his music to affect people, but in a much more encouraging way. He wants to uplift the listener, and coming from someone as frayed and frenzied and vampiric as Cave used to be, it's a reasonable turn.
On "O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)," horniness isn't just next to godliness, it is godliness. It also features a phone call message from Cave's ex-partner, the musician Anita Lane, who passed away in 2021. However, her voice isn't ghostly or distant: it's vibrant and alive, laughing and telling a story about her and Cave in bed. These sorts of references and recollections position Cave as an artist resigned to time and lust and distance, one who has embraced the ticking seconds and has consciously chosen to endure.
At barely two minutes, album closer "As the Waters Cover the Sea" is a short gospel-infused mini-epic accented by little more than piano and bass. But it's that choir, that ridiculously beautiful, crushing, soul-nourishing choir, that stops the show, the world, the breath. Cave's simple lyrics, about a woman who is visited by a saviour-like figure, have little to do with political religion and everything to do with desire and love and the cosmos and pain and peace and faith and bewilderment and vulnerability and acceptance and destruction and the whole damn thing of it all. This writer listened to it five times in a row and openly wept, crying uncontrollably, tears streaming down his face while petting his cat and staring out at leaves lightly swinging through the cloudy day. He texted his wife and told her he loved her. He was so moved thinking about the whole of everything, the holy and profane, the simple and complex, that he couldn't help himself. It was a moment, practically sacred in its incomprehensibility. It just might be one of the best things Cave has ever put to tape. Two minutes. Sometimes that's all it takes.