Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have released their new album, Wild God.
This is the Australian rock band’s first album since 2019’s Ghosteen, a critically acclaimed double album that was shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize, and their 18th album overall.
The band has teased the release with singles like the title track “Wild God,” which explores the journey of a deity across the planet, and “Frogs,” which draws on biblical themes, referencing Cain’s killing of Abel.
“I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it’s had on me,” Cave says about Wild God. “It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It’s a complicated record, but it’s also deeply and joyously infectious. There is never a masterplan when we make a record. The records rather reflect back the emotional state of the writers and musicians who played them. Listening to this, I don’t know, it seems we’re happy.”
Wild God was co-produced by Cave and Warren Ellis, mixed by David Fridmann (Mogwai, Low), and Cave started writing the record on New Year’s Day 2023. “Wild God…there’s no fucking around with this record,” Cave adds. “When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves you. I love that about it.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone last year, Cave opened up about the music on their forthcoming album.
“I think the energy that we’re trying to find in our music needs to come from somewhere else other than basic rock & roll,” he said at the time. “There’s a lot of energy in the new record, but it’s not done as a rock & roll group, by which I mean guitar-orientated music.
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“Warren and I have been looking for ways to create music that has that kind of visceral energy about it. It’s not that we don’t know how to do energetic rock & roll — everybody knows how to do that stuff — I think we’re just looking at different ways to get to the emotional core of what I’m trying to write about.”
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Wild God is out now.
Wild God Tracklist:
1. “Song of the Lake”
2. “Wild God”
3. “Frogs”
4. “Joy”
5. “Final Rescue Attempt”
6. “Conversion”
7. “Cinnamon Horses”
8. “Long Dark Night”
9. “O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)”
10. “As the Waters Cover the Sea”
