It’s another great selection of songs from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. You get a new Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album and you know what yer paying your money for. It does what it says on the tin. Until you open the tin.
This is more of what we have come to get used to since 'Push The Sky Away'. It’s dark and moody and full of latent suppressed energy with, very emotional and raw feelings for all to hear. Nick Cave singing lyrics" nothing really matters' or 'I need you", it hurts to listen to him singing these words.
These songs were inspired or indeed, affected by the tragic death of Nick Cave’s son during the making of the album. The intersity is energy sapping for the listener, what it must have been like making the album after such tragic events is just mind numbing.
The album does not come with the lyrics included, which makes listening to the songs even better as they take you on one of Mr. Cave’s journeys, and you never know where that’s going to go. The album is definitely a grower, especially if you liked the direction the band was going in with 'Push The Sky Away' and the 'Live from KCRW' album that came out a while after. Skeleton Key, and the Bad Seeds in particular, might seem more subtle, but don’t be fooled by that.
The vocals on the album are not as harsh or hard as we might have had from Nick Cave in the past. Now that he is passed his 20,000 days on earth it seems like he doesn’t need to be as in your face as he sometimes can be (Grinderman?). He instead relies on drawing you in by making you want to listen to what he is saying or singing. And he isn’t always singing. Sometimes it’s more of a semi musical narration. Love songs including references to vomiting in the sink are always going to be a source of intrigue for me.
'Jesus Alone', the opening track of the album is of a similar sound as 'Jubilee Street' from 'Push The Sky Away'. After the first few times of listening this is probably the best track of the album so far. And a good indication of what to expect from the rest of the songs. 'Girl in Amber' is Nick Cave in his best pleading yet threatening tones, with suitable backing vocals.
Another favourite track was the almost spoken word 'Magneto' whichreminds me of Johnny Cash singing "I shot a man in Reno, just to see him die". In Magneto Mr. Cave tells us: "Oh, the urge to kill somebody was basically overwhelming, I had such hard blues down there in the supermarket queues".
Track 5 is Nick Cave looking for the Anthrocene. I had no idea what this was and the nearest thing I could find was Anthropocene, (a proposed epoch that begins when human activities started to have a significant global impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems). It might be a bad spelling or it might be something else completely. Either makes sense and another excellent tune.
On the song 'I Need You', we return again to the earlier themes "When you're feeling like a lover....n,othing really matters anymore I saw you standing there in the supermarket"....
"On Distant Sky" Nick is joined by classically trained Danish soprano Else Torp. Not someone I am familiar with. If asked I would describe this as a duet but I would still feel I might be wrong. The Bad Seeds make it sound like church music which when done right is a beautiful noise. It’s done right here.
Is Nick Cave turning into a Palace Brothers Will Oldham? Skeleton Key lyrics at times reminds me of 'You Will Miss Me When I Burn' from the Bonnie Man himself. You won’t be rocking out or singing along to Skeleton Key, but I will no doubt return to its songs time and time again and then my appreciation of the record will increase each time I do.
To get under the skin of this album it helps to watch the film, 'One More Time with Feeling" as a companion piece.
9/11
Alan
