Push the Sky Away

Alongside David Bowie and Scott Walker, Nick Cave is one of a mere handful of artists still capable of surprising listeners 40 years into their career. Last seen exploring gutter-rock with Grinderman, he’s now back with the Bad Seeds and has readied a 15th studio album that’s a world away again from the rousing rock ‘n’ roll of last long-player Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! Whether sprinkled with strings, embellished with choirs, or stripped back to guitar, piano and Warren Ellis’ atmospheric synth loops, these beautifully-brooding missives make for intoxicating listening. Lyrically, Cave’s on fire too, delivering a plethora of melancholic metaphors about love, and all manner of menacing pen portraits of sad and seedy individuals in even sadder and seedier circumstances. Superb stuff.