New Music 01/2022 – Billie Eilish, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Peaches
Tag: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Excellent sophomore album about the dangers and costs of fame; beautiful meditation on grief and loss; the Queen of Electro Smut.
(Not Really) New Music 09/2019 – Pink Floyd, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Unthanks
I thought that, rather than acquiring more new music, I should give attention to the neglected albums in my collection that I never had a proper listen to.
New music 07/2017 – Nick Cave, Gattaca Soundtrack, Feist, Triple J Hottest 100, Laura Mvula, D.D Dumbo
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Live From KCRW
I would have preferred a full concert recording from the Push the Sky Away tour, but this loose and casual 10-song show performed for the KCRW station in Santa Monica is a great live offering. It’s predictably dominated by the Push the Sky Away material, and the rest of the picks match the quiet, meditative mood of that album, bar the closer Jack the Ripper, a throwback to the fire-and-brimstone Nick Cave of old. It wouldn’t be a Bad Seeds gig without The Mercy Seat, their signature showstopper performed here as a stripped-down piano version with all the white-knuckle tension and power of the original.
New music 06/2017 – The XX, Goldfrapp, Seis Cuerdas, Nick Cave
The xx – I See You
Like many people, I adored this band’s hushed minimalist debut, but then came the dreaded second-album dilemma: where to go next after you’ve already emerged as a fully formed deal with the sound, image and mood all perfected? More often than not it’s a course of diminishing returns, more of the same but not quite as good. Luckily, on this third album the xx seem to have figured out how to move on by embracing a wider range of influences, samples and vocal loops, and the end result sounds both fresh and unmistakably like the xx.
There’s also a greater variety of mood; while it’s not necessarily a “happy” album some songs sound decidedly more optimistic and upbeat. Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim may not be great singers in a conventional sense – neither of them has much depth or range – but they know their way around limitations and their vocal interplay still remains enchanting. A couple of songs in the middle of the album sticks closer to the blueprint of the debut, and while they’re fine the best tracks are the ones where the band push themselves.
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