Push the Sky Away is the 15th album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Recorded in Saint-Remy de Provence, in a 19th century mansion and produced by Nick Launay (producer of Dig Lazarus Dig and both Grinderman albums), this brings us the first Bad Seeds album since 2008 and the first without Mick Harvey. The album’s songs took form in just under a year; each song a constant strive to convey how significant events, momentary fads and mystical absurdities sit side-by-side, and questioning how you may ultimately recognise what is important.

Upon the announcement of their 15th album, Cave wrote ‘If I were to use that threadbare metaphor of albums being like children, then Push the Sky Away is the ghost-baby in the incubator and Warren’s (Ellis) loops are its tiny, trembling heart-beat’ and one could not ask for a more perfect description; lyrically the album is beautiful, intense and moving, but it’s Ellis’ loops that wrap the nine songs together, drawing out familiar Bad Seeds atmosphere and adding illustrious meaning to the words.

‘We No Who U R’, the first single, sets the scene of the album; as a society, we’re living with the consequences of actions and Cave’s initial hesitancy steadily merges into a definitive threat: ‘We know where you live/and we know there’s no need to forgive’. While Cave’s lyrics remain potent and enriching throughout, the entire album remains true to a sense of powerful restraint. Even the album’s most predominate change of pace in ‘Water’s Edge’ remains true, immersed deep into depths of Warren Ellis’ ardent strings. If you’re lusting after Nick’s all-too-familiar passion- propelled howls, in the most part, you’re not going to get it with this album. However, what Push Away the Sky does offer is a beautifully complex and harrowing collection of menacing lullabies, rich in depth and bitterness carrying an indistinguishable sadness. It may not be what you thought you wanted to hear, but it’s definitely what you needed.