Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

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Essential Albums

  • Skeleton Tree
    Skeleton Tree
    Skeleton Tree

    Though the majority of Skeleton Tree had been written and recorded before Nick Cave’s teenage son Arthur died in a tragic cliffside fall, it is almost impossible to explore this record without that context. The accident took place in July 2015, toward the end of the album’s recording sessions, and Cave did go on to alter certain lyrics in the wake of Arthur’s passing. Inevitably, a deep sense of grief and loss seeps through these slow and considered songs, which follow the lead of 2013’s Push the Sky Away to hang quietly over off-kilter loops, synths and other electronic elements introduced by close collaborator Warren Ellis. For someone who has exuded such primal confidence in the past, here Cave sounds muted, unmoored and racked with doubt. Yet his songwriting remains as focused and penetrating as ever, right from opener “Jesus Alone”. On the first of several songs that seem to touch on reaching out to someone across an impossible gulf, he sings, “With my voice I am calling you” against a low rumble of distortion and an ominous whistling motif. As always with Cave, his employment of Biblical themes only marks the start of his remarkably vivid imagery: “You’re a young man wakin’/Covered in blood that is not yours” becomes “You’re a drug addict lyin’ on your back/In a Tijuana hotel room”, among other transfigurations. Some tracks feel almost too raw and personal for us to be hearing as outsiders. “Girl in Amber” unfolds like a devastating hymnal, while the anguished “I Need You” falls into a mantra-like repetition of its title phrase. By contrast, other tracks rank among Cave’s most accessible and relatable. Haloed by standout vocals from Danish soprano Else Torp, “Distant Sky” is a gorgeous song of devotion, both familial and romantic. And on the mellower “Rings of Saturn”, Cave’s near-rapped flow of lyrics leads to a striking epiphany: “And this is the moment, this is exactly what she is born to be/And this is what she does, and this is what she is.” Cave would focus more entirely on Arthur’s absence on 2019’s Ghosteen. But as a chorus of vocals joins him on the closing title track, it’s hard not to hear the final line—“It’s alright now”—as the start of the long and painful process of learning to live without someone.

  • No More Shall We Part (2011 - Remaster)
    No More Shall We Part (2011 - Remaster)
    No More Shall We Part (2011 - Remaster)

    Arriving three years after The Bad Seeds’ inaugural best-of collection, this stately 2001 follow-up to The Boatman’s Call is also Nick Cave’s first album after successfully battling drug and alcohol addiction. Since 1994’s breakthrough Let Love In, Cave had found himself growing ever more respected as a songwriter on the global stage. Mostly valuing understatement over the threat of bombast, these songs mingle melancholy romance with Cave’s long-favoured Old Testament themes. Cave makes no secret of his inclinations with song titles like “God Is in the House” and “Oh My Lord”, but there are always more subtleties waiting to reward close listening. And despite the intimacy of songs like the opener “As I Sat Sadly by Her Side”, there’s a gorgeous cinematic sweep to the string arrangements there and elsewhere (observe the gentle crescendo finishing off “We Came Along This Road”). Cave and company never feel rushed; the early highlight “Hallelujah” approaches eight minutes, culminating in a memorable vocal section from folk legends Kate and Anna McGarrigle. The songwriter’s own singing feels more tentative and vulnerable too, as if he’s finding his preferred register all over again. Compared to the ferocious vocal turns that punctuate his work before and after this, these performances are, largely, quiet and tender. Yet there’s more here than funereal balladry: “Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow” rides jazzy piano and unabashed rock guitar to an uplifting group chorus, while “The Sorrowful Wife” represents the album’s closest brush with thundering rock catharsis. Individual arrangements are given intense focus by repeat Bad Seeds producer Tony Cohen; closing track “Darker With the Day” starts by hanging closely on quivering piano notes, violin plucks and bass rustlings as Cave sings nakedly of Biblical portent: “I found a woolly lamb dozing in an issue of blood/And a gilled Jesus shivering on a fisherman’s hook.” Featuring co-writes and several string parts by Dirty Three’s Warren Ellis, No More Shall We Part foreshadows a new chapter for The Bad Seeds that would arrive later in the decade. Beyond the band itself, the partnership between Cave and Ellis would yield many striking soundtracks from the mid-2000s onward, and by the early 2020s they were also releasing intimate albums as a duo.

  • Tender Prey (2010 - Remaster)
    Tender Prey (2010 - Remaster)
    Tender Prey (2010 - Remaster)

    2010

  • Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
    Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
    Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus

    On their first record without co-founding member Blixa Bargeld, who exited after 20 strong years of service, The Bad Seeds divide this 2004 double album into discreet segments that largely contrast the chaotic (Abattoir Blues) with the more reserved (The Lyre of Orpheus). Abattoir Blues telegraphs its harried churchly fervour on opener “Get Ready for Love”, the first of several gospel-rock rave-ups. Even without Bargeld’s integral guitar parts—he is succeeded here by Gallon Drunk’s James Johnston, who also features prominently on hothouse organ—Cave and his band create a vivacious racket. With its joyous hand drums and backing choir, “There She Goes, My Beautiful World” evokes Let It Bleed-era Stones, while “Fable of the Brown Ape” swings between loud and quiet with knowing mischief. “Messiah Ward” is especially striking, thanks to a skeletal groove and Cave’s spontaneous-sounding vocal turn. Considering that both sides of the album were reportedly recorded in less than two weeks, that crackling air of immediacy makes sense. Turning down the volume considerably, The Lyre of Orpheus still sees Cave prowling and preaching with brooding intensity: check the title track’s scenery-chewing retelling of Greek mythology. Lighter turns like the flute-kissed “Breathless” feel downright jaunty by comparison, with Thomas Wydler taking over from drummer Jim Sclavunos on this section. The double album’s second side has its feverish moments too, as heard via the juddering rhythms and impassioned vocals of “Supernaturally”. That track’s evocation of Nina Simone feels anything but accidental, while the choir’s invitation for children to lift up their voices on the closing “O Children” seems uncharacteristically optimistic for Cave. It’s remarkable that after two decades of leading The Bad Seeds, Cave remains so creatively fruitful here. Rather being left stranded by Bargeld’s departure, he seizes on the sudden vacuum to explore a heady rush of new ideas. He would only continue to flourish after this, in his signature ensemble as well as with the exaggerated grotesquery of side project Grinderman and his more solemn work and soundtracks with frequent Bad Seeds MVP Warren Ellis. If this themed double set was about showing off his multitudes, Cave’s output would only become more colourfully prismatic in the years to follow. Flanking his albums with novels, screenplays, film scores and even blogging, Cave would follow this project’s prolific lead into many other facets of his creative life.

  • The Boatman's Call (2011 - Remaster)
    The Boatman's Call (2011 - Remaster)
    The Boatman's Call (2011 - Remaster)

    The Boatman’s Call represents a dramatic turning point for Nick Cave, trading the character-driven narratives of past albums for the first blush of a more honest songwriting approach—one he would describe as “exclusively autobiographical” by the time of The Bad Seeds’ mournful 2019 album Ghosteen. At the time, though, this 1997 landmark saw Cave unexpectedly let his guard down to reflect on both his recent divorce from Viviane Carneiro and a short but impactful relationship with kindred spirit PJ Harvey. Even more striking is the sudden softness and openness of the arrangements. While 1994’s Let Love In revealed its share of gorgeous balladry and 1996’s Murder Ballads located considerable foreboding in the quieter details of its source material, this album features Cave’s most graceful and direct songwriting to date. And where a roiling clamour of instruments might have accompanied him in the past, here piano takes the lead (along with his inkily expressive voice) while his bandmates slide respectfully further into the background. A signature song for Cave since its release, the opening “Into My Arms” sets the tone by embellishing its open-hearted meditation on romantic and religious faith (“I don’t believe in an interventionist god/But I know, darling, that you do”), accompanied only by Cave’s piano and Martin Casey’s subtle bass guitar. Other songs follows suit, feeling more classic than ever in form: the redemptive “People Ain’t No Good” is so broadly appealing that it was employed to emotional effect in Shrek 2, while back-to-back tracks “There Is a Kingdom” and “(Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For?” are the kind of stately yet devastating ballads that would absolutely silence a concert audience. Cave’s renderings of God and the Devil are gentler than usual on “Brompton Oratory” (complete with its unlikely plink of drum machine). Similarly, the closing “Green Eyes” treats its casual profanity with surprising tenderness. Even the ominous English-style folk of “West Country Girl” culminates in a domestic portrait of a woman and her cat. That track includes violin shading from Dirty Three’s Warren Ellis, who would go on to become Cave’s closest collaborator. Ellis also lends woozy accordion to the sparse “Black Hair”, delivered so intimately that it’s as if Cave is right beside us. The decades to come would see Cave plunge ever further into his own life for his songs, sharing the personal weight of both true love and unthinkable tragedy. While his multi-decade marriage to Susie Bick would provide him (and us) with even deeper romantic ballads, the 2015 death of their son Arthur would also underscore his work. Following the unexpected death in 2022 of another of his sons, Jethro Lazenby, Cave told The New York Times that performing was like repaying a debt to those whose support helped him through his grief.

  • Let Love In (2011 Remaster)
    Let Love In (2011 Remaster)
    Let Love In (2011 Remaster)

    Nick Cave’s steady creative growth from The Birthday Party’s frantic intensity to The Bad Seeds’ more rounded and contrast-rich work hit a new peak with 1994’s Let Love In, his eighth studio album with this distinctive ensemble. Today the record is nearly overshadowed by the inclusion of “Red Right Hand”, whose skittering groove and Biblical portent have been used to palpable effect in various Scream movies and as the theme song to TV’s Peaky Blinders (it’s also been reworked by everyone from Arctic Monkeys to Snoop Dogg over the years). Yet the immediate scene-stealer is the dub-inflected ballad “Do You Love Me?”, opening the record with a Greek choir of backing vocals supplied by Beasts of Bourbon’s Tex Perkins and Birthday Party co-founder Rowland S. Howard. Other familiar faces from Australian underground rock show up on the album too, among them Dirty Three violinist (and future Bad Seed) Warren Ellis and The Triffids’ David McComb. True to the album title, many of these songs hinge on love as a central theme, including the seesawing “Loverman”, later covered by Metallica. But this being Cave, romance and devotion are not pat subjects to muse upon but tangled, often thorny terrain to wade through at one’s own personal risk. “Nobody’s Baby Now” is gorgeous to the ear, with questing lyrics that turn to the great works of poetry, religion and human behaviour for the answers to lost love. At the same time, it’s relatable in its own poetic flourishes: “Hers is the face I see when a certain mood moves in/She lives in my blood and skin.” Cave and collaborators go all in on brooding, velvet-draped atmosphere right across Let Love In, from drummer Thomas Wydler’s dramatic timpani on “Red Right Hand” to multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey’s vibe-drenched fluency on varying accompanying turns. Out the front is Cave, hovering over the organ or piano like a rogue preacher bent on leading his congregation astray. But for all his gnashing, fervent presence on tracks like “Jangling Jack” and “Thirsty Dog”, he shows just how much crossover appeal he can muster—and maintain. Cave was less than two years away from tapping Kylie Minogue for the unlikely global hit “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, and there are strong hints at just how darkly dashing he could be to a wider audience in the lush romantic foreboding of “Red Right Hand” and “Nobody’s Baby Now”. Before his fruitful foray into classic murder ballads and enduring songs like “Into Your Arms” and “People Ain’t No Good” on 1997’s The Boatman’s Call, here is Cave realising his full potential as a dark-hearted interpreter of some of the most enduring themes in Western music and literature alike.

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About Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Since the ‘70s, Australian songwriter Nick Cave has built a body of work by turns terrifying, swaggering, tender and spiritual. Cave was born in 1957 in Warracknabeal and eventually headed to art school for painting in 1976. The following year, he dropped out and formed cacophonous post-punk group The Birthday Party. In the wake of their breakup in 1983, Cave started The Bad Seeds, with whom he has explored his own life and major influences—American rock ‘n’ roll and The New Testament in particular—through vicious gothic punk (their 1984 debut, From Her to Eternity), ornate piano ballads (1997’s The Boatman’s Call) and orchestral rock (2013’s Push the Sky Away). In 2019, he released the monumental, symphonic Ghosteen, an album filled with the presence of his son Arthur, who died aged 15 in 2015. Ghosteen was the clearest expression of a major shift in Cave’s sound, which he has expanded upon with his closest collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis. Together, they’ve worked on numerous film scores and 2021’s hallucinatory CARNAGE, on which Cave continued to confront grief, faith and hope.

ORIGIN
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
FORMED
1983
GENRE
Rock

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