The last couple of albums from were brilliant but harrowing. How could they not have been, given what Cave went through, losing two sons in the space of seven years. The 2021 collaboration with (red) righthand man Warren Ellis continued in a similar vein, although the shadow of the old, howling Cave floated through .
To say sunlight was peeping through is an exaggeration, but the curtains on his darkened room were at least starting to twitch. Words like ‘acceptance’ or ‘healing’ would be insulting, but can be heard as an artist living with what happened. Cave uses the words ‘joyous’, ‘happy’ and even ‘unchained’ to describe it, and, remarkably, you can hear where he’s coming from.
and swing like nothing we’ve heard from him since 2008’s , especially the backing vocals and strings that burst from the former and the yearning in Cave’s voice in the latter, ‘amazed to be back in the water’. The lyrics of Frogs veer wondrously from an opening ‘ ’ to a closing cameo from Kris Kristofferson who wanders by, kicking a can. During a song that uses ‘ ’ for its title, a ‘ moves around Cave’s bed, saying: ‘ ’.
Is this the same ghosteen who mounts the , who rode through the rain and ‘ ’? ‘ ,’ Cave croons to a presence there again in , touched by its flame to ‘ ’ as choir and drums lift the song heavenwards as an offering. Cave emerges, however partially, from his with the realisation ‘ ’ ( ). celebrates rather than mourns ex-Bad Seed Anita Lane with a touching phone recording of her voice and a very un-Cavelike vocoder.
sings of the peace that ‘ ’, and an album this, for the most part, ‘joyous’ and ‘happy’ suggests that, against all odds, Cave has found some. does what great art is supposed to do: it takes the artist’s experiences, however dark, and makes them universal. There is simply no one else like him.
Pat Carty is a writer for Irish monthly music and politics magazine Hot Press. You'll also find him at The Times, Irish Independent, Irish Times and Irish Examiner, and on radio wherever it's broadcast. Bryan Ferry hooks up with Nine Inch Nails for his first original song in more than a decade Linkin Park countdown starts counting back up, everybody confused “The context had changed so much.
I knew I had a lot of quirks and weird things, but there were only dysfunctions left”: Daniel Gildenlöw on confronting his neurodiversity via Pain Of Salvation’s Panther.
