Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tell a freewheeling story of a deity roaming the planet on their new single, “Wild God,” which will appear on their upcoming album, also titled Wild God, due out Aug. 30. The album will be the band’s 18th overall and first since 2019’s Ghosteen.
The group blends rock, gospel, and even a little harpsichord to create a five-minute journey. “I’m a wild god flying and wild god swimming, and I’m an old sick god dying and crying and singing,” Cave sings before a gospel choir introduces hope to the song: “Bring your spirit down.” It’s a sound that recalls the band’s Abattoir Blues mixed with Cave’s recent collaborative album with Warren Ellis, Carnage.
“I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it’s had on me,” Cave said in a statement. “It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It’s a complicated record, but it’s also deeply and joyously infectious. There is never a master plan when we make a record. The records rather reflect back the emotional state of the writers and musicians who played them. Listening to this, I don’t know, it seems we’re happy.”
Cave, who began work on the album on New Year’s Day 2023, co-produced the 10-track album with Ellis and David Fridmann (Mogwai, Spoon, Low). “Wild God…there’s no fucking around with this record,” Cave said. “When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves you. I love that about it.” The band recorded the album in Provence, France, and London, and the record features guest appearances by Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood, who recently toured with Cave, and guitarist Luis Almau.
Cave spoke about Wild God and how he saw the music on the album last year in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I think the energy that we’re trying to find in our music needs to come from somewhere else other than basic rock & roll,” he said. “There’s a lot of energy in the new record, but it’s not done as a rock & roll group, by which I mean guitar-orientated music. Warren and I have been looking for ways to create music that has that kind of visceral energy about it. It’s not that we don’t know how to do energetic rock & roll — everybody knows how to do that stuff — I think we’re just looking at different ways to get to the emotional core of what I’m trying to write about.”
Wild God track list:
1. “Song of the Lake”
2. “Wild God”
3. “Frogs”
4. “Joy”
5. “Final Rescue Attempt”
6. “Conversion”
7. “Cinnamon Horses”
8. “Long Dark Night”
9. “O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)”
10. “As the Waters Cover the Sea”
From Rolling Stone US
