Wild God

For example, ‘O Children’ from Abbatoir Blues is one of my favourite tracks. It has loads of energy but with a very melodic and fantastic piano sound.

The Wild God album is like a half-spoken, half-song rock hymn, rock gospel, filled with religious images, choirs and evocative background music – forming a spiritual sonic soundscape, filled with hope despite the despair of a fallen world. Keyboards form the evocative sonic landscape, backed by frequent choirs. Cave’s piano is surprisingly in the background, compared to previous albums, not leading or guiding the music, more acting as an accent to the melodies—frequent images on the album, water, beautiful women, old gods and redemption or transformation. I thought the references to the ‘beautiful woman’ were to his wife when I first heard the album, but they seem to also refer to women in general, as a redeeming force in this fallen world.

Cave has developed a trend since the Push The Sky Away album to use spoken vocals instead of singing, and I must admit I much prefer when Nick sings his beautiful lyrics. Wild God has a lot more spoken word than singing. 

However, there are a couple of tracks that don’t seem to fit in. For example, his sincere and intimate hymn – ‘O Wow, O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)’ to Anita Lane. The spoken recording seems misplaced and does not fit the music, but as a hymn to her, it works just fine. 

The first single from the album, ‘Wild God’, gets us back into a Bad Seeds crescendo that starts 1:40 into the track, and keeps growing.

‘Final Rescue Attempt’ is my favourite track on the album, Ellis plays repeating simple keyboard notes, accented wonderfully by Cave’s carefully placed piano strokes. 

‘Conversion’ is probably the best Rock Hymn on the track. I can imagine how well that would work at their concert as a communal gospel rock hymn.

‘Long Dark Night’ is another favourite from the album, with an excellent piano and Cave’s best singing on the album, his vocals are wonderfully delicate and fragile. It brings back memories of an old favourite at his live concerts – ‘God Is In The House’—the most acoustic-sounding track on the album. 

Despite my admiration for his work in general, I did not like the album when I first heard it, but it has grown on me. So, if you dismissed it after a first listen, give it a few more listens. This music is not suited as background music. You need to sit down and listen to enjoy this album. For fans, it is a must-have. For fans of evocative music, indie rock and alternative rock, it is also a must-have. The great thing about Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds is that you never know which cave (no pun intended) you will enter when you follow Nick into a new album. Some of the caves will be warm, intimate and cosy, some cavernous, a bit scary and loud, and some simply beautiful and wondrous. Because they are all different, there will be some you like better than others. 

But you will always be happy that you followed to explore whatever new cave Nick Cave has carved out for you, and as always, you will want to linger, listen and reflect. This album is filled with evocative tracks that feel like soundscapes rather than traditional melodies. Four decades in, this is yet another evolution in a continuing and awe-inspiring amount of artistic exploration.

Finally, having seen Nick Cave both solo and with the Bad Seeds many times, I encourage anyone interested in his music to experience Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at least once live. They are fantastic live.  

Back to Music