New Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album due 'next week'

[holyzombiejesus]

Just cut and pasting the news but that's a fucking nice surprise....

Nick Cave announced a new album with The Bad Seeds via his Red Hand Files newsletter today. It's called Ghosteen, and it's out next week, he says.

Cave told a fan that Ghosteen is a double album. "The songs on the first album are the children," he wrote. "The songs on the second album are their parents." Cave also said, "Ghosteen is a migrating spirit." Find the tracklist and cover art below. The band's last album of new material was 2016's Skeleton Tree.

Ghosteen:
Part 1:
01 The Spinning Song
02 Bright Horses
03 Waiting For You
04 Night Raid
05 Sun Forest
06 Galleon Ship
07 Ghosteen Speaks
08 Leviathan

Part 2:
01 Ghosteen
02 Fireflies
03 Hollywood

[wosl]

[Ferris]

Unexpected good news!

[holyzombiejesus]

Piccadilly and Norman both have the release date as 8th November so not as imminent as first appeared. Still, it is a nice surprise.

[Norton Canes]

Fantastic! Someone certainly left the good news tap on this morning!

[Norton Canes]

Any tracks up yet?

[chveik]

Piccadilly and Norman both have the release date as 8th November so not as imminent as first appeared. Still, it is a nice surprise.

they say 4th october on rateyourmusic

[holyzombiejesus]

Monorail saying 8th November too. Presume Rateyourmusic is going off Cave's 'next week' statement rather than the actual release date given to record shops.

[holyzombiejesus]

Just seen, digital 4/10, physical 8/11.

[chveik]

wow this is really bad

those awful new age synths and the self-parodying lyrics

[OpenMikeKnight]

wow this is really bad

those awful new age synths and the self-parodying lyrics

Ignore this.

[Ferris]

Ignore this.

Way ahead of you.

[grassbath]

Anyone else listened to this yet? I'm checking it out now. It's very much Skeleton Tree pt. 2 and is pleasant enough - essentially just ambient with poetry over the top. Sounds to me like he's been listening to Radiohead and Fleet Foxes. I'm not invested enough in Cave to go delving into the lyrics for meaning but there are some lovely parts.

[alan nagsworth]

This is the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard. Me and my mate just cracked a bottle of shiraz and soaked up the whole thing in silence, I cried my poor bastard eyes out at least four times. "It's okay to love something you can't hold in your hand". God almighty. Absolutely stupendous expression of grief, I've honestly never been so dumbfounded by a full album back to back like this. I will gladly hang on every single word Nick ever utters but this is just next level. I'm grateful he invited the world into his grief like this because he fully fucking didn't have to and we don't deserve it but it bleeds out of him and he clearly couldn't not do it. One of the greatest artists we will ever have the privilege of hearing.

[sevendaughters]

always going to feel like a prize prick strolling in and criticising this after Nags has poured his heart out, doubly so when we're dealing with an artist still processing grief. But I found this quite a trudge. I have no real qualms with the basic style (Nick does spoken word over formless new age synth meandering) but it's not one I'd leap into the air for and over the course of 75 minutes it very much comes down to a question of "how much do I value Nick Cave and his lyrics?" and I have to say "not as much as most who like him, I'm sorry to say."

This isn't a bad record: it's brave and different (although in a way it reminds me of the Sandro Perri record from last year). It just needs an editor and some energy. I've seen some say it's his best since The Boatman's Call and I respect that view.

[alan nagsworth]

^ The Ghosteen of CaB posts there lads. Devastating.

Nah I'm just yankin your chain buddy, you're alright

[Ferris]

Am I the only one who loved Skeleton Treet? I thought it was a terrific record. Magneto is one of those songs that grows on you and stays stuck in your head

Saw him live last year with a very pregnant Mrs Ferris, Ferris Jr kicking away like a mad thing during the loud ones. Think that counts as his first gig.

Really looking forward to this record, when I get a bit of time.

[sweeper]

I'm nowhere near having an opinion about this record, having listened to five songs from it.

But on the synth sounds, I think there's a naivety in them, which makes the songs feel very direct and simple, even while the lyrics are kind of abstract, that I think is entirely deliberate. It plays into the John Martin style fantasy art the record comes with, and the whole public persona he's recently adopted. It gives the record and talking books fable feel, which I find very soothing and odd, like when I first heard Boards of Canada.

[alan nagsworth]

^ very good point, completely agree. Straight away on the first track, it made sense and I got it. Absolutely no need for convincing at all.

Go back and listen to the whole thing from start to finish. The measured impact of it is sobering and crushing.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

I think I would have loved this album back when I listened to a lot of depressing music. It's probably great but I won't be giving it much of my time.

[momatt]

The song about the family of bears and the baby bear going away, made me cry.

[sweeper]

depressing music

This isn't that. It's incredibly bold and strange and moving, but the last thing it is is depressing.

I can't think of a single other piece of music I've heard that sounds like this.   

[grassbath]

On second/third listen, and having read a bit more about what he's said about it, it's basically his Carrie and Lowell ain't it. Dialogue with a ghost, the struggle to release and be released by a spirit.

[phantom_power]

I'm listening to it for the first time now and it is fucking beautiful. Atmospheric, elegiac, profound,  all those poncy words

[Ferris]

It feels very much like a continuation of the Skeleton Tree. Particularly Magneto which stuck with me the most from that record.

[phantom_power]

I haven't heard that album yet. I must go back and give it a go if it is like this one

[alan nagsworth]

Yeah I listened to Skeleton Tree on the way to my mate's house where we listened to Ghosteen fuelled by hash and wine. Later that day we watched some super emotional parental-themed season 3 Simpsons and listened to a bunch of classical guitar. I'm surprised I didn't just chuck myself under a tube train on the journey home that night, I had the feelings fuckin pummelled out of me.

[Noodle Lizard]

I think it's great on first listen, possibly better than Skeleton Tree. It feels more like a Nick Cave solo record rather than the work of a "band", if that makes any sense at all, but then again a lot of the last couple of albums have felt that way.

[Goldentony]

this is like Paris, Texas in that while it was beautiful and so close to home it's at the door i'm sort of scared to go through it again because it's fucking supernaturally heavy. It does sound like Vangelis and the Nightmare On Elm Street score, but not a bad thing at all for me.

[kalowski]

It's fucking amazing.