Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Wild God
PIAS
ABOVE THE CURRENT
At a time when “joy” has become an overused sales pitch for the American Democratic Party’s newest iteration (better, though, than their counterpart’s “fear” theme), Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds have re-appropriated such stimulated emotion for the literal and figurative voice of their Wild God and its sweeping cinematic soundscape. Even a song appearing halfway through the band’s latest record entitled “Joy”—formless and snaky, yet with all of its dread, “unnamed sorrow,” and “dark and grim force” poking through its rippling skin like a suddenly broken bone—has the feel of passionate ascension, of awestruck uplift.
It’s a wondrous veneration before Cave and the Bad Seeds that’s also heard on the new record’s ever-so-jarring “Frogs” (“Leaping to God, amazed of love”) and on the exhaltative “O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)”—the latter in dedication to one-time partner/collaborator Anita Lane—that actively portrays a sensation of gushing generosity that takes over all of Wild God for the best. Even “Long Dark Night,” with its declaration of “No zombie, no ogre, no devil there / But a flying man with long trailing hair,” winds up as a cool and lovely breeze wafting over this “earthen sphere.” Coming from a man who’s been moved to public communion in the wake of private tragedy, the dual nature of moments such as “Joy” and the bait-and-switch bravura of black-bleak to white-light define (without confining) Cave’s measure for making something truly good from some things truly soul-crushing.
It’s not hard to get caught up in the rapture of Cave’s return to business with his incendiary Bad Seeds—even before we get to the contemplative author’s endearing and near-religious texts, considered flights of lyrical tenderness, and teasing bits of real humor and play. Where once the Bad Seeds trod upon scorched-earth settings with fistfuls of fire and arms heavy with spiky brickbats, on Wild God, the band treads with bright light lifting their angel-winged heels through a cloud of excitable, contagious melody. Yes, there’s the occasional drum paradiddle or rhythmic piano punctuation, but for the most part this version of the Bad Seeds is free, close, and guided by delicious melody rather than chaos.
And Cave? His voice never sounded better in its reserve, and richer in its nuances. I don’t know if Wild God is his best work, but the glee in taking the time to find out is more rewarding than any other recording in Cave’s four-decade career.
