This, they say, is the afterlife. With the bright cover and the woozy sounds of synthetic loops, these are no longer the brutal, deathly textures of Skeleton Tree. Ghosteen is post-death and the sort of record that finds catharsis in the pain and the sorrow of its music.
Now if that sounds pretentious then you are simply not following. Ghosteen is the last installment of Nick Cave's trilogy, the one that started with the sparse and haunting Push The Sky Away and continued with the devastating Skeleton Tree that was released a few months after the tragic death of Cave's son (Skeleton Tree had actually been recorded before that, and was slightly altered afterwards). Ghosteen is where it ends. Where everything ends, by the sound and by the lyrics of it.
It might not work initially, and God knows I was underwhelmed during my first listen to the album, and was clutching at fucking straws, looking for any vestige of substance in Warren Ellis's loops and Nick Cave's largely spoken vocal delivery. I believe "Hollywood" grabbed me from the start but not much else. It probably took the third listen, that inevitable night hour in headphones, to win me over.
Suddenly, the heavy and insidious magic of Ghosteen hit my senses. Cave's songwriting was all there, on top of the now familiar stripped-down sound and two or three of those trademark piano lines (songs like "Bright Horses" and "Waiting For You" are not a million light years away from his past ballads).
And at the end of the day, this is just beautiful music. I have no idea what his band are going to do during the live shows next spring (I mean, you will hardly hear any drums or guitar on Ghosteen), but this sound is just so organic and so pure. It is the sound that makes Cave write some of his best songs ever - even if I still, after at least ten full listens to this album, see Ghosteen as one sixty-eight minute piece. But who cares when this music, to quote Michael Gira from later this month, is sacred.
RECOMMENDED THIS MONTH:
Hello Exile by The Menzingers
Ghosteen by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Active Listening: Night On Earth by Empath
Ode to Joy by Wilco
Fireraisers Forever! by Comet Gain
Leaving Meaning. by Swans
Colorado by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Three Chords And The Truth by Van Morrison
