Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' New Album Is Harrowingly Beautiful
"Halfway in. Already drained."
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' highly anticipated new record, Skeleton Tree, is finally out, and after screenings of its accompanying film, One More Time With Feeling, premiered last night, we got stuck into the emotionally raw, draining material for a track-by-track breakdown.
NICK CAVE – Skeleton Tree
Kobalt
Jesus Alone
The first taste of Skeleton Tree, Jesus Alone was delivered to us via its video clip (also a segment from the accompanying feature film One More Time With Feeling) a week ago and left us feeling shattered. Opening line: “You fell from the sky/Crash landed in a field...” – immediately we realise that words are going to jump out and affect us in a different way now when we listen to post-trauma Nick Cave: “cried”, “blood”, “tear ducts”, “god”... Warren Ellis weaves his mystical magic, warping sounds to the point where we’re unsure of their original instrumental source. Strings surge and then rapidly vanish around sombre piano chords as if sucking out the life force. “With my voice/I am calling you...”
Rings Of Saturn
Probably the most hopeful-sounding track, melodically, on the album. Vocals are delivered in a more spoken-word fashion, with “ooh-ooh-OOh-ooh-OOh-ooh” backing accents. The droney, extended synths continue. “This is what she is and this is what she does...” – we can’t help thinking about Cave's wife Susie, because we know the tail end of this album was recorded while the family navigated emotional wreckage following the loss of their beloved son Arthur.
Girl In Amber
This song is solemn, emotionally raw and just littered with references that make you ponder the tragedy. Backing vocals sound like a chorus of angels weeping. Cave explores a repeated lyrical motif: “The phone it rings no more”. There’s a sense of sleepwalking or existing in a state of suspended numbness. Cave sings“You little blue-eyed boy”. “I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world... but I don’t think that anymore.” Cave concludes by singing the repeated phrase, “Don’t touch me”.
Magneto
Elongated strings underscore this track – all of these songs are haunted by agonising loss, but this one is particularly harrowing and contains the lyrical phrase after which this album’s accompanying film was named: “One more time with feeling”. Cave’s vocals are so vulnerable (“I’m sawn in half”). It’s increasingly hard to listen to. This album contains so many references to blood and bleeding, which Cave’s songs often do, but now these seem closer to the bone. Should we be allowed access to Cave’s grieving process in this way? Halfway in. Already drained.
Anthrocene
“And this sweet world is so much older” – Cave’s diction makes it impossible to miss a single poignant phrase: “All the things we love, we love, we love/We lose.” Gentle galloping percussion adds unsettling urgency – “I’m pulling you away”. “It’s a long way back and I’m begging you please to come home now/Come home now.”
I Need You
Very dark, foreboding bass chords on the organ and scattered drum beats. During this track, Cave actually struggles with some of the higher notes – just out of reach – and at times the vocal melody sounds improvised. This is the most emotionally fragile song on the album (“Nothing really matters when the one you love is gone”); it sounds like Cave is trying to articulate and make sense of it all. This will be a tough one to replicate and perform live.
Distant Sky
When the female vocal part enters, “Let us go now, my darling companion...” – so pure and inviting, there will be actual tears. Danish soprano Else Torp helps create the most beautiful song you’ll ever hear. It sounds like rays of sunshine reaching down through the clouds to fetch the fallen. Then Cave’s voice re-enters: “They told us our gods would outlive us/They told us our dreams would outlive us/ They told us our gods would outlive us/But they lied.”
Skeleton Tree
The instrumentation throughout this entire album serves to gently prop up Cave’s vocal as we listen to and feel every syllable of his pain: “I call out/Right across the sea/But the echo comes back empty/And nothing is for free.” A chorus of vocals comes in to support and back Cave as he sings, “And it’s alright now”. Could it ever be, though?
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