It’s Still Living

The release of Wild God’s first few singles were greeted as a “return to form,” with fans omitting where Nick Cave might be returning from and why this return might be so welcome. It’s generally considered bad form to tell a grieving father that the wake was lovely but could have used some drums. Because, for the past few years, Cave has been in a wilderness, not only of unimaginable grief but also of an audience capture that demanded profundity and relentless beauty. The demand to save us through his own loss got so bad that it sometimes seemed as though 30 ecstatic years of crawling over fat pussies to get to one good asshole might be memoryholed in favor of an (ugh) narrative of Nick Cave as a Sufferin’ For Our Souls Jesus whom the Furies couldn’t destroy, so they gave him an advice column.

Wild God could have gone badly astray, in both errantly gorgeous or needlessly edgy directions. In line with Cave’s recent dabbling in small-“c” conservatism (mainly of the “standing athwart the forces of history” kind, with some provocation thrown in for taste), we coulda gotten Cave reciting Frederick Seidel poems aloud as Warren Ellis diddled a theremin. As evidenced by his recent interview with Stephen Colbert (where the host took every complicated thought about the paradoxical nature of grief that Cave expressed and preciously regurgitated it back to the audience as pop psychology), we could have easily gotten a literal throw pillow, with “bless this mess” stitched in gothic lettering. In line with Cave’s stated aversion to any cultural picket line not mandated by heaven or Big Art, we could have gotten Nick Cave: Live From the Iron Dome.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Wild God (PIAS)

Indeed, the song “O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)” starts with “She rises in advance of her panties,” which might be the worst lyric Nick Cave has ever written. When I heard it, I looked up to the sky and thanked Allah for bringing my man back to me.

Instead of disaster or “return to form,” Wild God is something far finer: a combination of Ghosteen and Skeleton Tree’s hosanna atmospherics (which worked when they worked) and the groovy, age-appropriate sexiness that made Push the Sky Away and Dig! Lazarus! Dig! two of the great rock albums of the century so far.

While produced by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, Wild God was mixed by Mercury Rev’s David Fridmann. And the latter's hand is evident throughout. The ambience beloved by Ellis is present but is put in the service of momentum as much as the term allows. The basslines recorded by a returning Martyn Casey (and at least partially written by Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood, who presumably met Cave through a “They’re Yelling at Me Online!” support group) are well suited to the producer’s baroquely psychedelic sensibilities. Same with Thomas Wydler and Jim Sclavunos, the drummer/percussionists who spend Wild God’s duration showing off their orchestral pop beats in a competition to see who can get Jane Birkin’s ghost off first. While there is no choir listed in the album credits, choral music is everywhere. At this point, a children’s choir might just come with the Bad Seeds suit. But the hosannas work here (and avoid the boogie gospel of Abattoir Blues), while the oscillating synthline of “Final Rescue Attempt” shows that even if Cave is no longer interested in being Jack the Ripper, someone in the Bad Seeds still loves the Stranglers.

Throughout—whether channeling the artful spontaneity of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter-era Joni (on tracks like “Joy” and “Cinnamon Horses”) or fulfilling his obligations to the Bad Seeds nation (in the State of the Bad Seed Union Address of the album’s title track)—Cave has never sounded better. In song and lyrics that feel more vulnerable than any wedding or funeral song he’s recorded, Cave’s voice has achieved an easy resonance that feels like a fulfillment of what he’s always strived for.

Which brings us back to “O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is).” Dedicated to Anita Lane— Cave’s former lover/collaborator who cowrote some of the Birthday Party/early Bad Seeds’ most evocative and strange semi-hits, and who died in 2021—no song on Wild God better embodies how great the album is, or better illustrates how grand Cave can be when he’s not being important. Crass, sentimental, and featuring the most primitive Bad Seed beat ever (motorik-ing along under a synth countertextual to Cave’s vocals that improbably sounds like the computer from Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut version of “Deeper Understanding”), the tribute somehow ends up as a highlight of both the album and the Bad Seeds catalog. Not despite the absurd aspects but through them. Around the three-minute mark, a voice message from Lane appears, brightly exclaiming, “Do you remember? We used to really, really have fun...” And Cave has fun accordingly; praising both his ex’s soul and her panties. The lyrics—cascading past such boring-ass concerns of “good” or “bad”—inform everything on Wild God. Reminiscent of his old rascally, off-handedly profound self, but with a sincerity stripped of both the archetypal razzle-dazzle of his earlier work and the showbiz that is inexorably drawn to public mourning, Cave escapes his fate of becoming alt-agnosticism’s most beloved Christmas ham. Instead, generously allowing his old friend to save him from himself one last time, Nick Cave paradoxically sounds like himself, maybe for the first time.

Correction: an original version of this review credited David Fridmann as Wild God's producer. Up to a point, CREEM regrets the error.