Photo from Flickr
By Miles De Rosa, Staff Writer
Starting with 2013’s “Push the Sky Away” Nick Cave and his band The Bad Seeds released a trilogy of critically acclaimed albums, peaking in 2016 with the morbid “Skeleton Tree” and capping off the run with the lauded “Ghosteen” in 2019. This year, Cave and bandmate Warren Ellis broke off from the rest of the group to release “Carnage,” an ambient and orchestral rock album that bears a musical resemblance to the preceding trilogy.
All three projects were filled with expansive sonic refrains punctuated by subtly industrial percussion that Cave’s deep voice fit perfectly within, and this new project is no different.
As we move throughout the album, different musical ideas explored by Cave during the trilogy get their moments in the sun. Because of this, some critics have said “Carnage” feels like a collection of leftovers too good to leave unreleased but not good enough to work into the original trilogy. Although that may be true, I would argue that “Carnage” stands alone better than any of the three projects in the initial trilogy.
What “Carnage” lacks in cohesion it more than makes up for in dynamics. The album, standing at a stout eight songs stretched over 40 minutes, feels less like it is telling one cohesive story and more like each song is attempting to open a different musical door.
The opening track “Hand of God” is propelled by a pulsing beat and overscored by sweeping violins and a frantic, high-pitched vocal refrain during the chorus; a song that could have slipped comfortably into “Push the Sky Away.” The very next track, “Old Time,” moves away from the sweeping sounds of the first entirely, instead offering a gritty, bass-heavy lament of feeling trapped in a past time—a sound and tone that is deeply reminiscent of “Skeleton Tree.”
Transitions like this occur throughout the album and give the project a fresh feeling from top to bottom. The albums released within the trilogy often seemed so focused on one idea that they felt stale in parts. Carnage avoids this pitfall entirely by exploring how these different sounds and musical concepts can fit under one umbrella.
Sometimes these sonic transitions occur within the space of a single song. The fourth song, “White Elephant,” feels like a turning point from the darker tones of the first half of the album to the brighter sounds and textures of the second. The first two minutes of the song feature a distant, droning violin and a surging bass over loose, airy percussion.
Cave uses this landscape to open a lyrical reflection on this past summer’s protests. It is a powerful rejection of white supremacy but manages to still recognize and grapple with the power this ideology continues to hold in our society. “I’m an ice sculptor melting in the sun/I’m an ice sculptor with an elephant gun,” Cave sneers at the beginning of the third verse. The grinding instrumental of the verses transforms into a bright and cathartic chorus that carries until the end of the song. This luminous chorus is much more emblematic of the second half of the record. The next song, “Albuquerque,” features Cave crooning about a former relationship over a lush wave of synths and sparse piano keys.
“Carnage” makes up for its lack of sonic consistency with a sharp lyrical focus. The album as a whole is a meditation on letting go, both societally and on an individual level. Every song feels like Cave grappling with something from a time before, a time that he no longer exists in.
This comes to a head on the penultimate song “Shattered Ground” when Cave again revisits a relationship from his past. He paints a languid picture of a frantic relationship, singing in the first verse, “And there’s a madness in her and a madness in me/and together it forms a kind of sanity.” Cave details the end of the relationship largely in metaphor, singing, “Come softly crashing down/my pieces scattered all around/scattered all around, scattered all around/toppled on the shattered ground,” leaving the listener with only the image of a broken man with nothing to do but let go.
The closing song, “Balcony Man,” is a song about carrying on. Cave authors a quiet piano ballad that sounds like it is being recorded in an empty cathedral. The mix feels outsized for the sparse instrumental, but the song remains intimate, Cave’s deep voice nestled in your ear. This song feels like Cave is speaking to himself, reflecting on what he is in a material sense.
Cave is letting go of the stories he has told about himself, of the majesty his songwriting often raps him in. “I’m a two-hundred-pound bag of blood and bone/Leaking on your favorite chair,” he sings in a moment of morbid recognition. This song sees Cave accepting himself for what he really is—outside of all of the stories he can rap himself in—and finding optimism because of it.
“Carnage” is an album of letting go, of coming into one’s own and to terms with their present. Cave has lost a lot in his life and reflecting on that loss is painful. But in the pain displayed on “Carnage,” Cave is able to find solace in unrelenting hope for the future and self-acceptance. “Carnage” is a reminder that no matter how much you have lost, there is always more wonder to be found in the universe for those who are willing to look.