Nick Cave has shared more insight into what fans can expect from his new album, saying that the project is “full of secrets”.
The Bad Seeds frontman announced details of his new album ‘Wild God’ last week (March 6) – dropping the full tracklist and artwork to the LP, as well as the intriguing title track.
Set for release on August 30, the album is co-produced by longtime collaborator Warren Ellis, and was described by Cave as both “a complicated record” as well as “deeply and joyously infectious”.
Now, the songwriter has taken to his blog (The Red Hand Files) to answer fan questions about what they can expect from the full album.
“I don’t want to say much about the album itself until it is released in August and you get to hear all the songs, but I can tell you that it is a record full of secrets,” he began. “It is made up of a series of complex and interlinking narratives, the title song ‘Wild God’ being the primary point of propulsion, with the songs all feeding off each other – not so much to tell a story, but to rally round an acutely vulnerable and mysterious ‘event’ that resides at the heart of the album’s central song, ‘Conversion’.
“I’m excited for everyone to hear the whole thing,” he added.
“Then I can tell you a few things that you really must know – like what exactly Anita is talking about, why Kris Kristofferson walks in and out of the truly epic ‘Frogs’, what the real life event in ‘Conversion’ is, why this record is so joyful when almost everyone in the songs is dead, why my wife finally awakens after years of sleep, what is the actual name of the narrator in ‘Long Dark Night’, who are the dozen white vampires in ‘Cinnamon Horses’, and why there is so much damn water. But all that, I guess, will have to wait.”
As previously announced, the album will comprise 10 songs and see the band move between themes of convention and experimentation – introducing left-turns that heighten the rich imagery and emotive narratives created by the frontman. Cave also said that the finished product is one that he gets “swept up” with, and that “there’s no fucking around with this record. When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves you.”
Elsewhere in the update to the Red Hand Files, the music icon also told fans about his time in the public eye, and revealed that although he often claims not to care about other people’s opinions, he was left overjoyed by the positive response to the newly-shared title track.
“I am often tempted to shout out loud that I don’t care what people say… And it’s true that I have become hardened to censure over the years – toughened on the anvil of public opinion, where I am criticised for what I say or, more often it seems lately, what I don’t say,” he wrote.
“And then the song came out,” he added. “And as the responses started to come in with such unrestrained and exuberant positivity, that sorry little cloud that had been following me around departed – and then I knew, because it struck me, like a great, warm, frothy, emotive wave, that I do care what people say, I care very much.”
You can pre-order ‘Wild God’ here.
The comments on the blog page come after the release of his book Faith, Hope & Carnage, when Cave spoke to NME and revealed what fans can expect from his upcoming music. When asked if he was pouring more love into his music, he responded: “I don’t know about the music, but these days I feel a more urgent need to connect with people.
“There’s a kind of duty in that, that maybe I didn’t feel before. That I have at my disposal something that’s very valuable – to make music and I don’t want to squander that opportunity in phoning in gigs or doing half-hearted attempts. Everyone is as important as each other.”
The most recent Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album was 2019’s ‘Ghosteen’. In a five-star review, NME wrote: “‘Ghosteen’ is one of the most devastatingly accurate accounts of grief that you’ll ever listen to. Yet it’s also, astoundingly, one of the most comforting. Few mediations on grief manage to navigate despair and catharsis as well as this.”
As well as ‘Wild God’, there is a television adaptation of Cave’s 2009 novel The Death Of Bunny Monro in the works, with former Doctor Who star Matt Smith confirmed as taking on the title role.