By Eileen Fortner, Contributor 

[PIAS; 2024] 

Rating: 6/10

Key Tracks: “Song of the Lake,” “Conversion, “Long Dark Night”

Most well known for their song “O Children,” Australian alternative rock band Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds just released its 18th studio album, Wild God. Wild God shows a new side of Cave that is in stark contrast to his previous work. Still grieving the loss of close friends and family members, this album takes a new approach to grief. Compared to the album Ghosteen, Wild God focuses on the joy in life and reflects on the remembrance of his loved ones. 

Often, it’s disputed whether Cave makes Christian rock because his work has recently been focusing on religion. This takes shape in the form of the struggles religion brings to one’s sense of self or the salvation it brought him as a believer. This question on religion is a rather touchy subject for fans and even is a point of confusion for the artist, who even struggles to declare whether or not he is a Christian rock artist. 

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This album holds a large amount of religious imagery and references in several songs, namely in the track “Long Dark Night,” which references the poem “Dark Night of the Soul” by the poet St. John of the Cross. While it doesn’t exactly appear that Cave is preaching his religion to his fans through his music, it appears that he is sharing his personal experiences with religion. Throughout the album, we can see that Cave has felt salvation and healing within his journey of grief, especially in the first track of the album, “Song Of the Lake.” However, Cave becomes more vulnerable with his emotions in his song “Final Rescue Attempt,” where he seemingly calls out for help and salvation, almost as if he had given up on life.  

Throughout the entirety of Wild God Cave seems to experiment a lot with the sounds of his tracks. Cave uses choirs throughout the album, which adds to the reflection of Caves’ religious experience. Jim Sclavunos on the drums killed it in almost every song, namely in the track “Conversion.” 

Cave also took a leap of faith and experimented with the raw recording of his vocals in the track “Joy;” this leap was well worth it. Overall, I would say all of the experimental moments in this album were well worth it and totally added to the overall genius that Cave put into his lyrics. 

If you were to ask me to describe this album to you, I would tell you that it sounds like the end of The Rocky Horror Picture Show where everyone sings in the pool for the entirety of 44 minutes. This album took a moment to grow on me. I believe strongly this is an album you have to experience several different times, in several different ways to get the true experience of Wild God. This is an album for a reason, and I think it is pretty hard to casually listen to these songs on their own. You really just don’t get the same experience. 

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/album/0TRr4JGEPJ4eAb5QKRaunf?si=NNqcL3y8RQWRSH-rsoZIBQ