Review - Nick Cave

Nick Cave
Push the Sky Away
Bad Seed Ltd.

I have to admit, I didn't like this album when I first heard it. I found the lyrics vague and uninspired, and the music dull. But that just goes to show, you should never judge an album by the first listen. Once I got used to Cave's lyrical style, and learned to live with his sadly limited voice, this album quickly became one of my favourite Nick Cave records. Those who are new to Nick Cave might find it difficult to get into Push the Sky Away, but it's worth the effort - this release easily stands up to any other album Cave has made since leaving The Birthday Party.
Despite the irritating title, opener "We No Who U R" is a classic Cave love song, simultaneously tender and threatening, and the lyrics are the kind that noone else could have written. Whispering drums and a high, plaintive keyboard give the track an air of longing, while Cave's, ahem, unique voice provides that ambiguity that is an essential part of so many of his songs - he could be calling you to bed, or waiting in your garden with an axe.
 "Wide Lovely Eyes" is more frustrating. Sonically, it's easily the album's best track - insistent, tender, at times vaguely reminiscent of 80s-era Springsteen. The problem is the lyrics. There is the occasional stunning phrase - "they've hung the mermaids from the streetlights" - but in general, the rhyme scheme is annoying, and the lyrics a little too sixth-form to stand up to repeated listens.
"They take apart their bodies like toys" - if that isn't one of the best opening lines to any song ever, I don;t know what is. The rest of "At the Water's Edge" is just as good - one of Cave's best songs so far, and that's saying something.
I'm not sure about "Jubilee Street" - at times it sounds like so much filler, but then a lyric jumps out at you that just...fits.
I've just been listening to this album, but I can't remember what "Mermaids" is like - I think that may be the best comment on it I can put down
The throbbing bassline of "We Real Cool" compliments perfectly the sinister lyrics, which seem to posit God as some kind of shadowy organisation.
"Finishing Jubilee Street" is fantastic - Cave's impressionistic lyrics are perfectly suited to the dreamlike subject matter. "Higgs Boson Blues" is a classic end-of-the-world song in the manner of Tom Waits' "Earth Died Screaming," and how can you not love a song that manages to fit in references to both Robert Johnson and Miley Cyrus?
Unfortunately, Cave chooses to end the album with its worst song. The title track is a dull, obvious song reminiscent of nothing so much as Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody."

The main criticism I can come up with for this album is that it's too homogenous. The atmospheric anti-melodies are fantastic backgrounds for Cave's lyrics and voice, but after a while the songs do seem to melt into one another. That effect isn't helped by the inclusion of a couple of tracks that could easily have been left on the cutting room floor. Still, a quality record - I would recommend it.

Rating: 7/10