NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS: WILD GOD
Will the congregation please stand. We shall omit tracks one through five... As latter period Bad Seeds album go, Wild God is a good 'un - but does it stand up the rest of Nick Cave's discography?
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Wild God
Bad Seed Records
Out Now
It doesn’t seem to be a popular opinion, but I’m afraid that I don’t think the new Bad Seeds album is much cop.
It’s certainly long awaited. I was excited. I pre-ordered mine from Mr Cave Himself. Posh grey vinyl. Lovely pressing, nice thick over-pasted card sleeve. Disappointing artwork. My anticipation makes it all the more difficult to admit that after three goes round the black circle, I probably won’t listen to it much anymore.
It feels to me like Nick Cave’s peak was at the end of the last century, with The Boatman’s Call. Literally every single thing he had committed to tape up to the point had real value - and the vast majority of it was satisfyingly and predictably brilliant. I’d struggle to give any of the Birthday Party or Bad Seeds output, up to that point, less than full marks.
Even the new wave primitivism of The Boys Next Door holds a curious interest for me.
However, the post-Boatman work, beginning with No More Shall We Part and ending with Dig!!!, Lazarus, Dig!!! introduces the controversial consideration of a patchiness to Bad Seed proceedings - each LP in its own right achieving a high middle score for me, but no more than that - and slowly dwindling from there on with each release.
I wonder if it’s just coincidence (I don’t think so) that once Blixa departs after Nocturama, we go another notch down, and by the time Mick Harvey leaves after Lazarus, with only Warren Ellis as his foil, the albums go from patchy to rarely memorable.
The first album without either long-term writing partner (or a heroin crutch), Push The Sky Away, continued the decline quite clearly, with no particular stand out track at all.
At least, not to my ears.
Of course, we all sympathise with Nick’s personal tragedies. I whole-heartedly appreciate how life-changing such loss must be, and am definitely not underplaying the seismic effect it must have on a parent. I am not undermining his dreadful experience. But taking the music on its own merits, despite them documenting his mourning process, the funereal dirges of Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen just don’t compare to his previous output. They are self indulgent (fair enough) and boring (sorry).
The structures of the songs don’t click with me - they just kind of drift through themselves - purposefully, of course - the man knows what he’s doing! - but they don’t hold my interest. Both albums are conventionally heralded as perfect works of bold brilliance. I just don’t hear it.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
So Wild God, heralded as a return to “proper” songs, was exciting news.
And it’s not shit by any means. Wild God is easily the best Bad Seeds LP since No More Shall We Part - even if Nick’s voice has grown old and cringily melodramatic in parts (Wild God itself) - at least half of the album contains really good songs.
The lyrics, of course, are always incredible (apart from maybe O Wow O Wow) and the highlights really are high - all of side two, barring O Wow, is great - if a little heavy on the gospel choirs and the rapture.
Enough churchy, already.
But still - with a discography as strong as it is, Wild God just doesn’t cut the mustard. I don’t know why I’d listen to it instead of Henry’s Dream, The Good Son, From Her to Eternity or the immaculate Your Funeral… My Trial.
It’s a different beast, of course. A different time, different motivations, different personalities and evolution has occurred. It shouldn’t be compared to work from 30 years ago; it’s not fair - nostalgia and my own ears bias my thoughts.
But that said, the maturing of Nick Cave just isn’t as exciting musically as his writing and media presence has become. The Red Hand Files, his interviews and articles are all entirely engaging, intelligent, touching and unmissable.
He has become (shock) an Elder Statesman of Culture, which is the perfect position for him.
I just wonder if we need another Bad Seeds record as much as we need Nick’s ruminations anymore.
I’m not suggesting he’s outstayed his welcome - if there’s one person you would always want as a dinner guest it would be Nick Cave - but it’s got to the stage now where I’d prefer to hear his thoughts rather than his tunes over cigars and coffee in the post-digestion reading room.
I don’t even think that’s a bad thing. It’s not like his life’s work has been that of an under-achiever.
Check Wild God out for yourself below, and let me know what you think:
I can only say Amen (isn’t that ironic?) despite all our Nick Cave worship sessions these tunes don’t sing to my soul either. Sorry, sorry, sorry!
I haven't listened to Wild God yet which goes to show that I don't expect much. I mostly agree with you, the departure of Blixa Bargeld and Mick Harvey have been a great loss, I never quite understood the admiration for Ghosteen but still I love Abattoir Blues and like a lot of songs on Skeleton tree. Anyway if I had to choose I'd go for the older stuff of course.