Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds : 'Wild God"

It seems Nick Cave's career has been a gradual move towards aging gracefully. The Birthday Party is another life. With each album from the past two decades, he is edging towards a more Leonard Cohen-inspired sound. The opening track of his new album carries a hopeful shimmer, for someone whose life has been marked in recent years by the death of his son, which this album released nine years later seems to find him moving past. His vocals are a little more spoken on the title track. This band anchors him from strolling off into poetry. I can hear equal touches of Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond in the speculative delivery of his vocals this time around. 

 We are in a weird place when punk collides with the hippy pop sounds of the '60s, but that is what happens here. The more surreal dream ballad that is "Frogs' is weird, but works, despite the subject matter."Joy" feels like it picks up where he left off on "Push the Sky Away'.  It's central to the theme of this album which Cavehas gone on record as saying is about joy, which marks another notable change, as he has been moving away from the murder ballads he became known for, and shows a more vulnerable side that is introspective. "Final Rescue Attempt' shows how this can be one of their strengths when played into the right way. It's one of the album's best songs. 

"Conversion' is more minimal as it bathes in ambiance as Cave pleads his poetry over it. The drums come in to provide the needed dynamic shift. While Cave said this album is about joy there is a great deal of religious and spiritual musings on it. "Cinnamon Horses" is more of a ballad.  It's well-produced and sounds great, but floats on an emotive cloud. At 66 his voice sounds great, he is not an artist I would worry about not pulling it off live.  "Long Dark Night" is like if Neil Diamond wrote a song for a horror movie. It has a slight country undercurrent. It is one of the album's better songs, despite being another ballad. 

The first song that sounds like Colin Greenwood of Radiohead might have a hand in is "O Wow O Wow" which sounds like it should have been the lead single from this album. I would not think I would like a "happy" Nick Cave song, but this one works. The last song is a sparse folk ballad, that at least finds Cave's voice working well, I could do without some of the choirs on this album, but he got the sound he was going for, it feels too gospel for my liking. I will give this album a 9, it is going to need time to grow on me, not one for optimism in music, but that is a personal choice, if you are one of Cave's less depressed fans then you might dig this one, everyone else is going to need to get used to it. 

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