Push the Sky Away
With multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis replacing Mick Harvey as his primary foil, Nick Cave finds his songs developing along the lines of his soundtrack work on *Push the Sky Away*. The mood is subdued, yet intense, as it forces Cave to sing from his deepest register and leads to some of his best work. Nowhere is it more effective than on the haunting “Wide Lovely Eyes,” where Cave and a Fender Rhodes keyboard provide the drama. The album is pure simmering genius, where life occurs in the shadows.
Push the Sky Away scans as the Bad Seeds' post-Grinderman comedown album, to be filed alongside their statelier turns. But where those usually find Cave in pensive, piano-man mode, the sound here is uncharacteristically weightless and eerily atmospheric.
Push The Sky Away is the first Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds album made without a single original Bad Seed (save Cave, of course). That fact alone shouldn’t mean too much. Cave has long shown himself to be an able collaborator under a myriad of circumstances, and The Bad Seeds have remained thrillingly consistent, in…
Experimental yet built on superb songwriting, fresh but still recognisably the Bad Seeds, the innovation and inspiration prove Nick Cave still cares an awful lot.
After 30 years and 15 albums, you could expect an artist to return to familiar topics.
It's been nearly five years since Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds issued the manic, intense rock cabaret that was Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! Since then, the formation and breakup of Grinderman yielded two studio offerings, and Cave and Warren Ellis have composed a few film scores.
Throughout his thirty year career with the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave has nary put a cloven hoof wrong and fifteenth album Push the Sky Away shows no sign of bucking that trend. The departure of founding guitarist Mick Harvey in 2009 is perhaps most keenly felt in the decisive move from the scuzzy garage rock of Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! into more sombre, lilting territories, closer to '97's The Boatman’s Call or 2003 offering Nocturama.
A band that the sky has never been the limit for, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds need no introduction paragraph.
Push the Sky Away, Nick Cave's 15th studio album with the Bad Seeds, is steeped in a calm, restrained atmosphere.
ClashMusic: Read an review of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds latest album 'Push The Sky Away' released 18th February 2013 via Bad Seed Ltd.
The Bad Seeds' 15th album, informed by the ageing process, is quietly riveting, writes <strong>Kitty Empire</strong>
Cave inhabits his familiar role as sombre, shadowy storyteller in funeral-paced songs, writes <strong>Dave Simpson</strong>
You emerge from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds's new album Push the Sky Away feeling strangely scoured and soothed, says Helen Brown.
A sombrely reflective, darkly amusing album from the man with the iron voice. CD review by Howard Male