Pixelscroll’s Music Pick for 02-22-2013!
Push the Sky Away by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative Rock
From an Amazon Top Reviewer:
s he ages, Nick Cave seems to court risk even more than he did in youth. After distancing himself from his mellower side with Dig and Grinderman comes Cave’s quietest album in ages. That’s not to say its laid back in the slightest. There is a dark, unsettling undertow to these songs. And an almost claustrophobic sense of voyeurism.
The ghostly We Know Who U R sets the tone by taking you by the hand and leading you through the dew of the morning with trees like pleading hands. Warren Ellis’ yearning violin provides fitting accompaniment. Wide Lovely Eyes follows and is one of Cave’s most beautiful ballads since Boatman’s Call’s Into My Arms.
At the Water’s Edge the women part their legs like Bibles but over all, most of these songs sound submerged in the depths of a vast sea, their protagonists floating in a twilight world between reverie and nightmare. Jubilee Street hints at Red Light District blackmail and murder peppered with surreal images like “walking a fetus on a leash”. We Real Cool maintains a suspended sense of menace which characterizes the entire album. Cave has a long tradition with messing with the conventions of Greek and Biblical mythology and Mermaids continues the trend.
Higgs Boson Blues is the albums centerpiece and rises to climax with a sprawling travelogue which includes driving in the Alps, Robert Johnson on the road and Miley Cyrus floating stoned out of her gourd in her pool. Push the Sky Away ends it all with the childlike but powerful simplicity of a nursery rhyme.
Cave’s records often have much to commend them. As a songwriter he’s up there with Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. And despite any fluctuations in line-up The Bad Seeds prove once again to be one of the most versatile and innovative bands around today. Together they have created a unique, eerie and mysterious masterpiece.
