I’m a Nick Cave fan who is listening to the entire back catalogue in release order during my drives to and from work so that I can better evaluate how I feel about the latest album, Ghosteen. Since starting this, many years ago, a new album, Wild God, has been announced. I thought I better finish this off before it’s released!

[INTRODUCTION POST][PART ONE][PART TWO][PART THREE][PART FOUR][PART FIVE][PART SIX][PART SEVEN][PART EIGHT] [PART NINE]

Ghosteen (2019)

Here we are. Almost five years ago, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds released Ghosteen. I didn’t listen to it. Not entirely, at least. I skimmed through the album and quickly realised it was in stark contrast to the band’s earlier work. The music I fell in love with. This was not that. So I decided, for reasons I truly cannot remember, to dive back into The Bad Seeds entire back catalogue. To remind myself what their music had meant to me, and to discover new gems I’d perhaps overlooked or never even heard before. It’s been a long and enlightening journey. But it ends here. It ends with Ghosteen.

I didn’t think it was fair to judge Ghosteen, like many fans had already done, without paying respect to the ever-evolving sound that Nick and the boys had created in the decades preceding the release of their 17th studio album. I wanted to know how they got here and where they’d been before. I wanted to remember.

It is easy to see how Ghosteen evolved from the sounds already being explored by the band in albums released immediately prior to this one. Push The Sky Away had already changed down a gear, and Skeleton Tree only pushed that further. But Ghosteen is on another level. Featuring no drums, barely a guitar, and a whole lot of piano and synthesised ambient soundscapes, the album barely walks, let alone runs. It is, perhaps, one of the most grief-stricken records of all time. Every lyric is delivered by a broken man, a man lamenting the tragic loss of his teenage son. It’s impossible to ignore the impact that Arthur Cave’s death had on his father’s song writing.

It is almost unfair to compare this record to the rest of the Bad Seeds back catalogue because it is so unrecognisable, so diametrically opposed to most of their earlier work, that it adopts the sound of almost another band entirely. It’s difficult to see where the various band members inputted into this album. It sounds more like a collaboration between Nick and his longtime partner in music, Warren Ellis, than a full Bad Seeds record.

But, having said all that, the thing is – it’s a masterpiece. It’s a beautiful, tragic snapshot of where Nick’s head was at the time. The record feels so personal that it almost seems like the listener is invading somebody’s privacy. Every song, every piece of music, the eerie synths and the discordant strings, the sad tone of the vocals, it all adds up to this incredible work. Themes of wanting someone, missing someone, waiting for someone and saying goodbye echo around the album from start to finish. It’s all just so… so sad.

This might be the most pretentious review I’ve ever written, but I can think of no other way of saying it. Ghosteen is a masterpiece.

Standout tracks: Spinning Song, Galleon Ship, Ghosteen.

I’m a Nick Cave fan who is listening to the entire back catalogue in release order during my drives to and from work so that I can better evaluate how I feel about the latest album, Ghosteen. Since starting this, many years ago, a new album, Wild God, has been announced. I thought I better finish this off before it’s released!

[INTRODUCTION POST] [PART ONE] [PART TWO] [PART THREE] [PART FOUR] [PART FIVE] [PART SIX] [PART SEVEN] [PART EIGHT]

Skeleton Tree (2016)

Skeleton Tree marks a continuation of the more laid back sounds of Push The Sky Away, but dives even deeper with that theme, featuring synthesised soundscapes and barely a drum beat in sight. The opening track, Jesus Alone, seems to directly refer to the tragic death of Cave’s son, Arthur, the year before the album was released. It’s difficult to know how much of this record was conceived and recorded before this event, but listening to it with the knowledge of what happened, it’s not hard to join the dots and recognise that Skeleton Tree is a document of Nick’s grief.

The energetic, angry, sarcastic Nick Cave of the 80s and 90s takes a firm back seat, as the lyrics are half sung, half spoken, and always delivered with a tinge of sadness. This is not a feel-good album, and it’s not supposed to be. Each track on this record glides effortlessly into the next, with no radically different approach from one song to the next. I feel that this album was important, the first step on a healing process for Nick, and his emotions are laid bare on every part of it. The feelings are raw. Confusion, upset, disbelief, a spiral of hurt that radiates from each and every song. It’s impossible to listen to this album and not feel, in some small way at least, what he’s going through.

Jess Denham of The Independent wrote that Cave’s “experience of bereavement is blisteringly undiluted” and called Skeleton Tree “a beautiful, shatteringly visceral portrait of grief”. I couldn’t put it any better, so I won’t.

Standout tracks: Jesus Alone, Girl In Amber, Magneto

Lovely Creatures: The Best Of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (2017)

Come on now. It’s the best of Nick and the gang. Is it any good? Use your brain. It’s good. It’s a great entry for new fans, and a nice collection for anyone else.

Standout tracks: All of them, I guess…

I’m a Nick Cave fan who is listening to the entire back catalogue in release order during my drives to and from work so that I can better evaluate how I feel about the latest album, Ghosteen.

[INTRODUCTION POST] [PART ONE] [PART TWO] [PART THREE] [PART FOUR] [PART FIVE] [PART SIX]

Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus (2004)

If I’m being completely honest, I can’t think of many double albums which warrant being spread out across two discs. In almost all cases, a better, more focused record could have (and usually should have) been created, with the remaining songs relegated to B-Side status. This, as you may well have guessed, is not true here. Almost serving as two entirely different albums, Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus is a deep, masterful piece of work which contains some of the absolute best of the bands work to date.

Part One – Abattoir Blues

Abattoir Blues comes crashing out of the gates with a riotous celebration of rock & roll, DA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA, GET READY FOR LOVE…! It’s a wake-up call that’s not often present on a Bad Seeds record, and it’s most welcome. The next track, Cannibal’s Hymn is one of my favorites, but the real stand out here is the double whammy of There She Goes My Beautiful Love and Nature Boy, both of which rattle along at a terrific pace (well, for the Bad Seeds at least) and cement themselves firmly in the upper echelons of anything the band has ever recorded. The albums title track is equally brilliant, and in fact the entire first disc is so good that it’s difficult to find anything more to say about it other than how awesome it is! The first part of the album closes with Fable Of The Brown Ape, which actually stands out as a bit of an oddity when set against the rest of the songs. It almost harks back to earlier work with the storytelling, off key vocals and discordant strings, but it’s equally brilliant nonetheless.

Standout tracks: Cannibal’s Hymn, There She Goes My Beautiful World & Nature Boy.

Part Two – The Lyre Of Orpheus

The second part of this album is a little quieter, a little more laid back and a little more stripped down. It sounds, if anything, a lot more traditional Bad Seeds than the full on first part. I can’t honestly say I enjoy it as much as Abattoir Blues, but it’s still a very worthwhile listen. The gorgeous Breathless and Easy Money lead the listener in to the first song where Nick really lets loose – the almost pirate-shanty like Supernaturally. What a great song! That’s really the only point of high energy on the disc though, as the closing three tracks ease you out as gently as you went in.

Standout tracks: Easy Money & Supernaturally.

All in all, Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus is an absolutely fantastic album, which successfully avoids the pitfalls becoming of most double albums – mainly by them being two completely different pieces of work. If the band had put these out as seperate records a year or two apart, nobody would have minded. As it is, we’ve got possibly one of the greatest double albums of all time.

Grinderman (2007)

I wasn’t sure whether to include the two Grinderman records in this retrospective, but why not? Grinderman, a side project made up mainly from Bad Seeds members was formed in 2006, supposedly as “a way to escape the weight of The Bad Seeds” (Cave, 2010). Quite what this means, I don’t know, because Grinderman sounds a hell of a lot like The Bad Seeds to me! Well, sort of. The songs tend to sound a little more disjointed, deliberately avant-garde and vitriolic to me. More garage rock, even.

Before listening to this album, the only song I’d really heard was Go Tell The Women, and as it turns out, it’s pretty indicative of the rest of the album. I really like it. A lot of the songs start off fairly innocuously before descending in to something resembling crazed mania. No Pussy Blues is a perfect example of this. The title track is brilliant and I could have quite happily had it go on for another three or four minutes.

Looking at release dates, it seems this album was recorded around the same time Dig, Lazarus Dig! and it’s easy to see a little crossover here and there. So, overall this is pretty much excellent stuff, and an easy recommendation to any Bad Seeds fan. All I’m wondering now is whether I need to go back and do some Birthday Party records too..?

Standout tracks: No Pussy Blues, Grinderman and (I Don’t Need You To) Set Me Free.

I’m a Nick Cave fan who is listening to the entire back catalogue in release order during my drives to and from work so that I can better evaluate how I feel about the latest album, Ghosteen.

[INTRODUCTION POST] [PART ONE] [PART TWO] [PART THREE] [PART FOUR] [PART FIVE] [PART SIX]

No More Shall We Part (2001)

I must admit, this was the part of my Nick Cave odyssey that I was least looking forward to. The first two albums of the new century frequently appear lower on rankings lists than The Bad Seeds other work. I’m happy to report that those doubts were absolutely and completely unfounded.

No More Shall We Part is a terrific album, and shows Cave’s writing has absolutely matured over the years. He’s always had a way with words, but there are songs on this record that are outright poetry set to music. God Is In The House is perhaps the best example of this, with one of the finest two line lyrics he’s ever written: “well-meaning little therapists, goose-stepping twelve-stepping tetotalitarianists”. It’s observant, it’s smart, and perhaps most importantly of all, it’s funny.

The rest of the album contains some of my favourite tunes from the band so far. Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow, Oh My Lord and The Sorrowful Wife have all earned their spot of the “(Very) Best Of Nick Cave” Spotify playlist I’ve been creating as I go. I can honestly say this is what I consider to be one of the Bad Seeds best albums.

One final note; the first time I listened to this record a couple of weeks ago I was driving home from work. It was dark, and around Guy Fawkes night. As the manic crescendo of Oh My Lord was blasting out of my car speakers I glanced over to my left. Somewhere, against the dark night sky, someone was letting off fireworks. The noise in the car coupled with the explosions in the sky lent and incredible air of, well, epicness. It was fucking brilliant.

Standout tracks: Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow, God Is In The House & Oh My Lord.

Nocturama (2003)

Consistently considered amongst the weakest of the Bad Seeds output, Nocturama is by no means a bad album. On the contrary, I rather liked it. Wonderful Life sets the usual melancholic mood we’ve become accustomed to by now and the following few tracks do little to raise spirits. This is far from being a criticism, by the way.

The album really kicks it up with the double whammy of Bring It On and Dead Man In My Bed, the first of which is a real highlight of the record and doesn’t sound a million miles away from the incredible Grindermen track, Palaces Of Montezuma. The tail end of the album doesn’t really drop in quality other than Rock Of Gibraltar, who’s only crime is just being plain boring. Finally we get Babe, I’m On Fire. A 15 minute, 43-odd verse, colossal tune that finishes off the album splendidly.

A weaker album it might be, but I’d rather listen to a weaker Nick Cave record than 99% of anything else that’s ever been recorded.

Standout tracks: Bring It On & There Is A Town.

Mike Patton has a new album out, a collaboration with French pop legend Jean-Claude Vannier.

What immediately strikes me about the album, ‘Corpse Flower’, is just how easy it is to listen to. As any Patton fan will know, most of his work outside of Faith No More require a little commitment and effort from the listener in order to fully appreciate it. No such effort is required here, its instantly accessible, and I welcome that.

The record is largely Patton’s trademark ‘lounge with a tinge of horror’ style. There are songs in which he pulls off an almost flawless impersonation of Leonard Cohen, and others that would feel more at home on a Nick Cave album.

I’m not sure whether or not I would put Corpse Flower in front of someone as an introduction to Mike Patton, but for anyone even slightly familiar with any of his side projects or solo work, this really is an essential listen. It stands alongside the very best of Tomahawk, Fantomas and any of the more esoteric stuff he’s put out over the last couple of decades. This is Mike Patton doing what he does, but God he’s doing it well.

I’m a Nick Cave fan who is listening to the entire back catalogue in release order during my drives to and from work so that I can better evaluate how I feel about the latest album, Ghosteen.

[INTRODUCTION POST] [PART ONE] [PART TWO] [PART THREE] [PART FOUR] [PART FIVE] [PART SIX]

Let Love In (1994)

Until I began this project, if anyone had asked me for my favorite Bad Seeds album, I’d give my stock answer; ‘Let Love In’. Whilst I’m not sure that would still be my reply, it really is a terrific piece of work. Do You Love Me is a perfect album opener, and it was whilst listening to this song it occurred to me that it’s got all the hallmarks of some kind of trip-hop or dub track. Then I noticed a few of the other tracks on the album have those slow, repeating basslines which remain unchanged against the melodies, the percussive roll of the drums and the kind of string/organ stabs that would usually sound more at home on a Massive Attack or Mad Professor record. I thought someone else must have made that connection so I Googled it, and no, I’m claiming it as my own. Let Love In is a trip-hop album in disguise! Classic Nick, the musical chameleon.

Elsewhere on the album we range from slow, comically dark ballads to the outright noise-punk of Jangling Jack and Thirsty Dog. Loverman remains one of the best Bad Seeds tunes to date and Red Right Hand needs no introduction to anyone. The album really does stand up, 25 years later, as one of the all time greats – it’s a classic.

Standout tracks: Do You Love Me (parts 1 & 2), Loverman & Red Right Hand.

Murder Ballads (1996)

Back to where it all began. As I wrote in the introductory post, this was the first Bad Seeds record I ever bought. I won’t lie, it took me a few listens to get it. I’d never heard anything like it before, and I’ve heard little else since. Loosely a collection of old folk tales with a common theme, you guessed it; murder. The first track on the album, Song Of Joy, is almost a perfect distillation of everything great about The Bad Seeds sound. The slightly off-kilter melody, the menacing half sung, half spoken lyrics and the suitibility epic crescendo to finish. It’s an absolute treat to listen to.

It’s not a perfect album, and there are songs on here I’ve warmed to far less than others, but the jazz leanings of Crow Jayne, the sad tale of Mary Bellows in The Kindness Of Strangers and whatever deranged, dark corner of his mind Cave pulled O’Malleys Bar from never get old. I’m not a huge fan of the duets with PJ Harvey and Kylie, but there are no bad songs on here really – just some I enjoy a lot more than the rest. And let’s not forget about Stagger Motherfucking Lee. Probably the most viscaral representation of pure carnage ever committed to song.

Standout tracks: Song Of Joy, Stagger Lee & The Kindness Of Strangers.

The Boatman’s Call (1997)

Coming only a year after Nick Cave’s tribute to murderous folktale anti-heroes, The Boatman’s Call couldn’t have been more different. Easily the most accessible of the Bad Seeds work, it’s the closest the band has ever come to mainstream, I feel. A much slower, more sedate affair than any of their previous work, the album feels almost desolate and barren in comparison. But that’s not a bad thing. The music, on the whole, steps back and allows Cave’s lyrics to really shine though. Has there ever been a better opening line than, “I don’t belive in an interventionist god, but darlin’, I know you do“?

This might be the Bad Seeds masterpiece. It’s not my favorite, but it’s hard to argue against this being their best work. The album flows from one beautiful track to another, with very little disrupting that journey.

Standout tracks: Brompton Oratory & There Is A Kingdom.

I’m a Nick Cave fan who is listening to the entire back catalogue in release order during my drives to and from work so that I can better evaluate how I feel about the latest album, Ghosteen.

[INTRODUCTION POST] [PART ONE] [PART TWO] [PART THREE] [PART FOUR] [PART FIVE] [PART SIX]

The Good Son (1990)

Let’s get this out of the way. This album is an absolute fucking masterpiece. Easily the finest work so far from the Bad Seeds, the album flows from one incredible tune to the next. Lush strings accompany most of the songs, with more than one of them sounding like they wouldn’t be out of place as a Bond theme. There are hints of Americana sporadically dropped through the record, the almost traditional gospel stylings of the title track to the mad preaching of The Witness Song. The Hammer Song is Nick Cave at his most harrowing finest, spitting out his lyrics with pure malice and terror. Then, completely out of the blue, comes possibly one of the finest love songs of all time. One of my all time favorite songs, not just from Nick Cave, but ever. The Ship Song is just magnificent. Live versions arguably better the studio recording (the first time I ever heard the song was on the Live At The Albert Hall CD bundled with the first Best Of compilation), but even so, this song never fails to hit hard. If Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds retired after this album, they’d have gone down as heroes even then. But they didn’t, there is much, much more to come. Outstanding in every way, if you only ever buy one Bad Seeds album, you wouldn’t go wrong with this one.

Standout tracks: The Ship Song, The Hammer Song & The Witness Song.

Henry’s Dream (1992)

Following up The Good Son was always going to be an impossible task. There was just no way of topping that record, and fortunately, it doesn’t seem like they tried. Henry’s Dream is quite a radical change in sound, once you dig a little beneath the surface. There appears to be more of a party atmosphere in the Bad Seeds camp, and the songs sound a little looser and a little more frenetic for it. I would argue that the album doesn’t really contain many long standing Bad Seeds favorites, but what we do have is a very solid collection of songs, which all fit together quite nicely. Personally, I think this is a good album, if not a great one.

Standout tracks: Brother, My Cup Is Empty & Loom Of The Land.

Live Seeds (1993)

Who doesn’t love a good live album? I was in two minds whether or not to include the Bad Seeds live recordings in this retrospective, but they’re pretty much essential listening. This is a fantastic showcase of the bands best up to this point. Absolutely terrific renditions of The Mercy Seat, The Ship Song, Tupelo, The Weeping Song are the highlights for me, but every song is worth listening to. I read that the album only came about because Nick was unsatisfied with the production on Henry’s Dream, but I never noticed any issue with that. Regardless, the recordings on this album sound fantastic. Man, I wish I could have been there.

Standout tracks: The Ship Song, The Weeping Song & Jack The Ripper.