Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away

Throughout his thirty year career with the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave has nary put a cloven hoof wrong and fifteenth album Push the Sky Away shows no sign of bucking that trend. The departure of founding guitarist Mick Harvey in 2009 is perhaps most keenly felt in the decisive move from the scuzzy garage rock of Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! into more sombre, lilting territories, closer to ’97's The Boatman’s Call or 2003 offering Nocturama.

Yet whilst the delineations of Cave’s output may come with jagged lines as angular as the man’s physique, it’d be judicious to bookmark Push the Sky Away as New Testament psalms. Lyrically it embraces modernity with the likes of Higgs Boson Blues, a listless Cave imploring ‘hear me preaching in a language that’s completely new.’ But perhaps this work is better summed up in a more classic manner on the elegiac title track. ‘Some people say it’s just rock ‘n’ roll, ah but it gets you right down to your soul.’ Amen. [Darren Carle]