Push The Sky Away is the fifteenth studio album from the Australian alternative rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. With such a large repertoire of material, it is always hard for a band to keep things new and fresh; with this album the band have certainly moved away from their older work but, in an attempt to be different, the album has somewhat lost its way. This album is overwhelmingly boring and profoundly uninteresting, one would expect so much more from such a critically acclaimed band but in this case they have failed to deliver.
A large proportion of the album has heavy underlying bass lines which build up tension, but these are not in any way exploited, they just drone on until the song ends. This causes most of the album to merge into one. The only memorable track for me was the finisher ‘Push The Sky Away’, but even that did not interest me particularly; it was just the only track that was lyrically and melodically different.
I was extremely disappointed that musicians of this calibre could produce a record that is so mediocre and instantly forgettable; it’s the kind of music I can imagine Peter Gabriel would be making if he completely ran out of ideas.
Nick Cave is a very good lyricist and I really do not understand how he completely missed the mark on this album, it seems he has got so lost in attempts to be profound that he has written what seems to be the lyrical equivalent of a hairdresser talking about her dreams.
One of the other songs that perhaps saves this album from the pit of musical despair is ‘We Real Cool’. In this song at least attempts to produce a crescendo are made, do not misinterpret me though this track is still only average at best; it does not take a lot to stand out on this album.
A very disappointing album, hopefully it is just a blip in an otherwise fairly untarnished career.