Push the Sky Away

( 2 )

Editorial Reviews

All Music Guide
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds re-emerge with Push the Sky Away, the first recording by this band since 2008. Produced by Nick Launay, the album was recorded at La Fabrique, a studio built inside a 19th century mansion in southern France. The two video singles, "We No Who U R" and "Jubilee Street," are both darkly beautiful ballads that harken back to the Boatman's Call and No More Shall We Part, and also contain various loops and electronic textures by the band's musical director, Warren Ellis. The Bad Seeds advanced the album with a brief documentary on YouTube.
All Music Guide - Thom Jurek
It's been nearly five years since Nick Cave & the Bad ...
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Editorial Reviews

All Music Guide
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds re-emerge with Push the Sky Away, the first recording by this band since 2008. Produced by Nick Launay, the album was recorded at La Fabrique, a studio built inside a 19th century mansion in southern France. The two video singles, "We No Who U R" and "Jubilee Street," are both darkly beautiful ballads that harken back to the Boatman's Call and No More Shall We Part, and also contain various loops and electronic textures by the band's musical director, Warren Ellis. The Bad Seeds advanced the album with a brief documentary on YouTube.
All Music Guide - Thom Jurek
It's been nearly five years since Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds issued the manic, intense rock cabaret that was Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! Since then, the formation and breakup of Grinderman yielded two studio offerings, and Cave and Warren Ellis have composed a few film scores. Push the Sky Away, produced by Nick Launay, is painted with a deliberately limited sonic palette by Ellis. The album's sequencing makes it feel like a long, moody suite. While most of these songs contain simple melodies and arrangements that offer the appearance of vulnerability and tenderness, it is inside this framework that they eventually reveal their sharp fangs and malcontent. Opener -- and first single -- "We No Who U R" is reminiscent of "Your Funeral, My Trial" in its intent, but musically Ellis' sparse loops, flute, and a backing vocal chorus lend it an elegiac feel that belies the threat in the lyric. "Water's Edge," with its rumbling bassline, eerie piano, and Ellis' droning violin loops, is more overt in its sinister menace. Its protagonist, full of rage at seeing the dance of romance among the young, warns: "It's the will of love/It's the thrill of love/It's the chill of love/Comin' on." "We Real Cool" uses that thrumming bassline too. Instantly taut, one awaits an explosion that never arrives -- musically. Here, and elsewhere on this recording, the listener is exhorted to walk an emotional tightrope between the human qualities in Cave's characters as speaking subjects and the more distasteful, disgusting traits that make them objects of repulsion. He doesn't judge. "Finishing Jubilee Street" features Ellis' electric guitar in bluesy resonance as it drones atop a strummed 12-string acoustic before layered strings begin marching toward a dramatic catharsis. "Higgs Boson Blues," the set's longest cut, uses the drum kit and electric guitars in a similarly long, formless blues that displays Cave in near rant mode; his black humor is evident inside sociological observations with Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana as characters. "Mermaids" employs humor too; from the start nearly obscene, it moves beyond its joke and becomes both a love song and a romantic elegy about the disappearance of the place of myth in Western spiritual life. Cave's protagonist believes in them all and laments them like an abandoned lover. The title track rises from the ether, driven by guest (and former Bad Seed) Barry Adamson's bassline and Ellis' eerie organ, which takes the foreground. It's a paean of determination in the face of grievous loss. Push the Sky Away is the first Bad Seeds record without Mick Harvey; the inherent lyricism and relative lushness in his musical arrangements are missed here. Despite excellent songs, this album feels more like an extension of Cave and Ellis' cinematic work than a classic Bad Seeds record. The sonic sea change is deliberate; but historically, given their vastly musical nature, this more economical approach is jarring, though seductive.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 2/19/2013
  • Label: Bad Seed Ltd
  • EAN: 5055667601744
  • Catalog Number: 1
  • Sales rank: 732

Tracks

Disc 1
  1. 1 We No Who U R (4:05)
  2. 2 Wide Lovely Eyes (3:40)
  3. 3 Water's Edge (3:49)
  4. 4 Jubilee Street (6:35)
  5. 5 Mermaids (3:49)
  6. 6 We Real Cool (4:18)
  7. 7 Finishing Jubilee Street (4:28)
  8. 8 Higgs Boson Blues (7:50)
  9. 9 Push The Sky Away (4:09)
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Album Credits

Performance Credits
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Primary Artist
Nick Cave Indexed Contributor, Piano, Vocals, fender rhodes
Barry Adamson Bass
The Bad Seeds Background Vocals
Martyn Casey Bass
Warren Ellis Synthesizer, Flute, Violin, Viola, Loops, fender rhodes, Guitar (Tenor)
Conway Savage Vocals
Thomas Wydler Drums
George Vjestica Background Vocals, Guitar (12 String Acoustic)
Aya Peard Background Vocals
Natalie Wilde Background Vocals
Chris Dauray Saxophone
Jason Evigan Background Vocals
Antonio Beliveau Background Vocals
Ryan Porter Trombone
James Sclavunos Percussion
Jessica Neilson Bass Clarinet
The Children of Ecole Saint Martin, Saint-Rémy-De-Provence Background Vocals
Martha Skye Murphy Background Vocals
Technical Credits
Nick Cave Composer, Lyricist
Warren Ellis Composer
Nick Launay Producer, Engineer
Thomas Wydler Composer
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Producer
Dominique Issermann Cover Image
Kevin Paul Engineer
Tim Young Mastering
Anna Laverty Vocal Engineer
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 2.5
( 2 )
Rating Distribution

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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted February 23, 2013

    I'm not happy about the fact that Mick Harvey left the band, but

    I'm not happy about the fact that Mick Harvey left the band, but his spirit appears to have remained in the Bad Seeds music. Oddly, a few tracks on the album reminds me of Crime And The City Solutions Paradise Discotheque, likely due to Nick Caves vocal style which is more spoken as if telling a story. This is most evident in the song Water's Edge.It's certainly not the best of his works, but the songs do grow on you in time. There are some truly beautiful tunes on this album which takes a softer vibe than many of their past works. Unfortunately, Nick seems to have had a case of writers block when making this album as the lyrics are quite blah (BTW- I think it was Hannah Montana that was mentioned. Ugh.)

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  • Posted February 20, 2013

    This latest release and personally long awaited is a sad disapp

    This latest release and personally long awaited is a sad disappointment. Meandering, thoughtless with references to Miley Cirus and 72 virgins! Give me a effin break! You got me on Jubilee Street, but barely! Don't waste your money! Sorry Nick, but I'd say pack it in....

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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews