NICK CAVE and his BAD SEEDS released their top-drawer 18th LP WILD GOD in August 2024. Then they hit the road to promote it.
But they’re not yet done.
New dates for 2026 below.
And today the band announced a live LP. It’s named LIVE GOD.
It’s a testament to The Wild God Tour, which wowed
audiences across the UK, Europe and North America.
The tracklist includes performances of the entirety of that first-class album,
as well as versions of catalogue favourites, such as ‘From Her To Eternity’,
‘Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry’ and ‘Into My Arms’.
It’ll see the day of light on December 5th. More infohere.
Here’s a preview, with a sterling version of the LP’s title track.
We’re on our way, slowly but surely, to the end of 2025.
Instead of starting to think about this year’s best LPs,
let’s go back to 2024 and listen to TUTV’s 20 Best Albums
again and look back on what we wrote about each one
of them.
Cave: “There’s no fucking around with this record. When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves
you. I love that about it. I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it’s had on me. It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it.”
TUTV: Cave is the God of cloak-and-dagger balladry. Now here’s a God I can believe in. Again he shows why he’s one of the best ever crooners in the universe. And lyrically it
feels as if, after so many devastating, heart-crushing years, with the loss of two sons,
he lets sparks of light back in his life. God bless Nick Cave.
MOJO presents the finest writing on NICK CAVE in a single deluxe
volume, The Collectors’ Series: NICK CAVE REVELATIONS 1957-2025.
To celebrate NICK CAVE (68 next month) extraordinary career, MOJO magazine
has brought together its finest writing on Cave in a new, deluxe 132-page bookazine. Drawing on over 30 years of exclusive interviews and in-depth features, MOJO unravels
the story of how Cave turned from troubled Melbourne teenager into fearsome goth frontman, and how his complex relationship with hard drugs and religion would feed
into The Bad Seeds’ ever richer, darker and more sexually charged music.
You can buy a copy and let it be sent to your home. Info here
I wonder when NICK CAVE is at home for dinner. If he’s not in the studio,
he’s on tour. Lately, he played some gigs with long-time buddy Warren Ellis,
did a string of spoken word performances, last year he took the Bad Seeds
on the road to promote new, grand, orchestral album Wild God.
And just now he announced he will visit Europe
assisted by Radiohead‘s bassist Colin Greenwood.
Orchestrator Robert Smith about
their supreme new opus.
TUTV: In the past 16 years Robert Smith lost his mother, father, and brother.
All these painful events led to this extraordinarily touching record. It’s one
long, emotionally layered lament that works liberating in the end.
Strong sentiments of heartache, grief, and sadness are omnipresent, but you
hear and feel frequently that Smith has accepted humankind’s inevitable destiny.
Live and die. Life and death.
Sonically, it feels like if you’re part of a funeral march that progresses in slow
motion. Almost every song starts with a long instrumental intro of waves of
mourning synths and weeping guitars, and every time when Smith‘s feverish
voice joins in, the sense of tristesse augments wondrously heavy-hearted.
5-star masterpiece!
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TUTV: Musically, tattoo artist Carter and his accomplices have left their angry punk days behind them and moved closer to classic rock on this surprising and bold longplayer.
And it’s a truly staggering result with several melodramatic power ballads that generate goosebumps, and some stoner rock ebullitions to keep balance. Carter sings his heart out with monumental vivaciousness. A vocal tour de force throughout, dealing with up and down emotions.
Lias Saoudi (voice/face/wordsmith/poet/writer): ‘Forgiveness Is Yours,’ is about life as eternal contingency… about no longer suspecting, but knowing that this shit will never get any easier… in fact, it’s about to get a whole lot worse, your body’s going to go into decay and the people you love will slowly start dropping dead around you… but somehow, you’ve smashed enough
of your expectations thus far in life, you’re sort of fine with it… you accept it.The overarching aesthetic themes at work here are torpor and further torpor still.”
TUTV: Without a shadow of a doubt their most startling, and most creative/inventive accomplishment. Sounds like FWF have written/recorded the bone-chilling soundtrack
for an entertaining Doomsday party. Enigmatic reflections, dark deliberations, distressing vibes, a John Lennon tribute and Saoudi as the foreboding messenger and sinister poet in the middle of it all. It’s the end of the world, as we know it, and it feels like Fat White Family.
Cave: “There’s no fucking around with this record. When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves
you. I love that about it. I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it’s had on me. It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it.”
TUTV: Cave is the God of cloak-and-dagger balladry. Now here’s a God I can believe in. Again he shows why he’s one of the best ever crooners in the universe. And lyrically it
feels as if, after so many devastating, heart-crushing years, with the loss of two sons,
he lets sparks of light back in his life. God bless Nick Cave.
TUTV: White returns to his punk blues roots of the early days. Swipe after swipe,
blue stripe after blue stripe, kick after kick, clap after clap. A total of 13 thunder
strokes. High-wired electricity. Dope stuff.
TUTV: The charismatic Lia Metcalfe‘s singular voice, both anxious and bewitching,
is all over this new, awe-inspiring full-length. Overall the sound is even more gloomy
and spine-chilling than on their debut from 2022.
It fits Metcalfe‘s introspective reflections on her turbulent past terrifically well.
They’re embedded in arresting songs that send shivers down your spine.
But, eventually, there’s a light shining
at the end of the Mysterines tunnel.
One that illuminates their future
and your stereo.
TUTV: The star duo made an album with lots of bright pop tunes and some blues light
ones. The licks/riffs and hooks – about a thousand – haven’t that BK’s raw and rough edge as we are used to, but I don’t miss it whatsoever.
The overall sonority leans more towards power guitar pop (slow, mid-tempo and only
a couple of fast ones). I never thought that the tandem would come up after 23 (!) years with a pretty different sounding, coherent longplayer, without ignoring their blues roots that is. I played Ohio Players more than their whole catalog together. Say no more.
TUTV: The three main elements that make this album special are Jeen’s remarkable
voice, her high-quality songwriting expertise, and the heart-and-soul passion that streams throughout it. Whether Jeen rocks out, muses, or swings moods, she always holds your aural attention.
TUTV: With Interplay their shoegaze past goes into the dustbin. Ride came up here
with a multi-layered pop LP stuffed with arousing tunes, alternated with pepped-up reveries.
All songs are sublimely orchestrated and bathe in a psychedelic jacuzzi,
while vocalist Mark Gardner‘s velvet vocals match the radiant atmosphere
exquisitely. It’s a new ride, and it’s a gratifying one.
TUTV: This first Mancunian collabortion sounds as if was made about 30 years ago.
Most tunes could be leftovers from The Stone Roses‘ 2nd and final 1994 LP Second Coming, the one on which Squire played his guitar exactly the way Jimmy Page did in Led Zeppelin for years. And Liam is Liam. Arms together on his back and letting his pipes do the talking. The two heroes just did what they wanted to do, making an album together and having fun doing it.
Before I was aware of it I had played the album about 10 times in 2 days.
Mind you this is not a masterwork whatsoever, but all 10 tunes are top-entertaining
and stick faster than I can say “I want the Stone Roses support Oasis on their reunion tour”?
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. Liam Gallagher – John Squire
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TUTV: The Other Side is a concept record about a “mysterious couple” having
adventures in an otherworldly America. The by-now 76-year-old Burnett translates
their journey in lovey-dovey lullabies, heartfelt musings, and amourus ballads.
This is the perfect record for daydreaming and relaxation. Soft, mellow, and tender.
His slightly hoarse Americana voice enchants and entices all through this sepia-colored album. Pure romanticism. Pure songsmith.
Artist: JUJU (Italy)
Brainchild of Sicilian multi-instrumentalist
and producer Gioele Valenti. Album: Apocalypse Is God’s Spoiler
Photo by Turn Up The Volume
TUTV: Valenti is a jam champ and a groove master creating electrifying, trance-like vibrations that transfer you to the dark side of your mind where you can freely
fantasize and explore your own psyche.
Circling Krautrock-like psychedelia is all over the place. Choir chants and spacey percussion cause a tribal atmosphere à la The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. Mind-bending and dream-triggering. As always.
TUTV: After the turmoil, chaos and drugs addictions (especially Doherty) of the early
years, the side-projects, solo records and getting clean and healthy the Libs are back, again. They’re not the boys in the band of yesteryear, they’re now grown-up men who
enjoy a stable life and still are obsessed by making music.
They became notable, experienced musicians who left their hedonistic lifestyle behind themselves for several years now. Not one dull moment, not one dull song on the eastern esplanade.
TUTV: The Irishmen have become first-class songwriters (which they already proved on previous LP Skinty Fia– – still my favourite one). Frontman Grian Chatten‘s lyrics show (again) his observative view on this modern-day, confused world and how it affects
his inner-self.
This is not their masterpiece yet to my ears, but it’s only a matter of
time that they will come up with a longplayer that will blow us all away.
Turn Up The Volume: Old skool punk ‘n’ roll? Absolutely. Any good? You betcha! Amyl and her loud buddies made another roasting riff-manic-monster of a hell fucking
hell yeah record. Pogo madness is back. Sturm un drang from start to finish. HOLY MOLY!
Band:THE SMILE
Sort of supergroup featuring 2 radioheads, Thom
Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and drummer Tom Skinner.
Album: Cutouts.
Their 3rd LP in just 2 years
(Radiohead 8 in 31 years).
TUTV: By far their best to my ears. On the previous 2 ones they tried too hard
to not sound like Radiohead (which they did frequently anyway) and did it with
too many redundant orchestrations, too many unnecessary layers and a bit of
arty farty structures here and there.
Mind you these are good LPs but on this one they keep it far more simple resulting
in 10 very compelling pieces of mesmerizing music. Trippy fast ones alternate with slow
musing ones and throughout the arrangements are subtle, direct and most entertaining with Thom Yorke sounding, yes, at ease, not forcing his compassionate voice/vocals. Bingo.
TUTV: Nostalgia is the keyword all over this fully devoted record. As we already know
for a long time Hawley is a romantic at heart who’s in love with his city Sheffield since
he was a child. It’s more than just his hometown.
It’s the place where he experienced all things good and bad, happy and sad. It leads
to yearning renumerations, fanciful daydreams and wistful meditations. With his soft-heartened voice and late-night stories, the late great Roy Orbison comes to mind on
several occasions.
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Artists:DEAD ANYWAY British duo combining the dark lyricism of Kate Arnold
against the music and soundscapes of Marc Symonds. Album: Tough, Listen
TUYV: Slow/mid-tempo/fast trip-hop tunes are wrapped in layers of
distortion and feedback, creating an eerie and at times sinister ambiance.
Massive Attack, Tricky, Arab Strap and Mike Skinner’s The Streets
and Laurie Anderson‘s latest opus Amelia come to mind.
DA resonates as EBM for people who come alive when the darkness sets in, far away
from our 24/7 suffocating life and the world’s destructive nature as we experience now, again.
Kate Arnold‘s spoken word stories evolve on waves of chilling synth soundscapes that actually ease one’s confused mind (mine, for sure) and transfer you to your space of imaginativeness. Trance massage it is. You’ll feel alive anyway.
“The singular mixture of classic punk/hardcore and electronic styles result in 12 frantic tracks of postmodern pop for the genreless future. Painted with a broad pallet of only the most extreme hues of emotion, each track is marked by a distinctive danceable mania.”
TUTV: Let your head kicked in with schizophrenic disco sledgehammers for illegal raves in batcaves where dropouts, misfits, loners, eccentrics, bohos, and other related outsiders gather to move in mysterious ways, far away from the normal world.
TUTV: It’s vintage Shellac/Steve Albini with its wayward song structures, its
capricious and minimalistic approach, its broken riffs, edgy hooks, sinewy
drumming, Albini‘s firm vocals and the raw and rough post-punk dynamics.
Absolutely weird to listen to, knowing
that the noise wizard is here no more.
He passed away on May 7, following a heart attack.
Only 10 days before the album release. Sad loss.
Artist: T BONE BURNETT Who: Legendary American songsmith and lauded producer who worked
with many greats (Elvis Costello, Robert Plant, John Mellencamp and many
more) and scored movie soundtracks all through his long career.
LET THE FLOWERS GROW
The song was originally written by Boy George with its initial message being
“one of
personal acceptance about being gay. As the song developed, it took on a more expansive and universal scope with its lyrics extending beyond sexuality and embracing race, gender, creed and religion.”
Epic.
Boy George – Peter Murphy
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Artist: PETER PERRETT Who: Former frontman of legendary British new
wavers The Only Ones (1976–1982, 2007–2017)
“The song incorporates themes of longing and desperation I felt in my own
life at the time that found a home in anecdotes of the desert and its characters
experiencing these feelings for reasons far removed from my reality.”
Artists: THE GLASS HOURS Who: American songwriters Brad Armstrong and Megan Barbera.
Their music blurs between Sunday afternoon country-folk and
the golden age of the 1970s.
“It’s about that someone you’ll never be with and that you allow to remain
inside you as a perfect unspoiled thing, yet still you measure and hold your
real relationship up against it. It’s a dream, an illusion, an unfair fantasy.
Nothing and therefore able to be perfect.”
The new issue of British music monthly UNCUT features Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
who are in a rip-roaring form, powered by their leader’s emotional candour, renewed
lust for life and their new supreme albumWild God.
. Also: Uncut’s review of 2024 (best albums, tracks, reissues etc.) and articles
with Alice Coltrane, Elvis Costello, Kris Kristofferson, The Troggs, Blur, John Peel’s
record collection, Jesse Malin, and many more.
This month’s free CD is a 15-track Best Of 2024 one starring Jack White,
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Beth Gibbons,
The Smile, Richard Thompson, Bill Ryder-Jones and more.
You can purchase a copy and let it be sent to your home. Infohere.
Cave: “There’s no fucking around with this record. When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves
you. I love that about it. I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it’s had on me. It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It’s a complicated record, but it’s also deeply and joyously infectious. There is never a master plan when we make a record. The records rather reflect back the emotional state of the writers and musicians who played
them. Listening to this, I don’t know, it seems we’re happy.”
Cave: “There’s no fucking around with this record. When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves
you. I love that about it. I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it’s had on me. It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It’s a complicated record, but it’s also deeply and joyously infectious. There is never a master plan when we make a record. The records rather reflect back the emotional state of the writers and musicians who played
them. Listening to this, I don’t know, it seems we’re happy.”
Press photo
Rolling Stone says: “Here’s a sense of abandon and play to Wild God that’s infectious. Produced by Cave and long-time collaborator Warren Ellis, the record continues their
constant conversation, confidently proclaiming that better times are ahead.”
TUTV: Cave is the God of melodramatic balladry. Now here’s a God I can believe in. Again he shows why he’s one of the best ever crooners in the universe. And lyrically it feels as if, after so many devastating, painful years, with the surreal loss of two sons, he lets sparks of light back in his life. God bless Nick Cave.
Uncut Magazine said: “On No Name, he’s done something special on his own terms,
delighted and surprised his audience, and provided one of the great rock moments of
the year.”
TUTV: White returns to his punk blues roots of the early days. Swipe after swipe,
blue stripe after blue stripe, kick after kick, clap after clap. A total of 13 thunder
strokes. High-wired electricity. Dope record.
NME said: “Knockout, spiritual songs for the end of time The ever-evolving five-piece enter a new phase of transformation on their arresting fourth album – their most considered and intricately crafted work yet.”
TUTV: The Irishmen have become high-quality songwriters (which they already proved on previous LP Skinty Fia– – still my favourite one). Frontman Grian Chatten‘s lyrics show (again) his observative view on the modern, gloomy world and how it affects him emotionally.
This is not their masterpiece yet to my ears, but it’s only a matter of
time that they will come up with a longplayer that will blow us all away.
The Guardian (British newspaper): “A cheerfully rocking album about global collapse”.
TUTV: After 25 albums, it sounds as if the prolific Aussies decided to simply rock out
for a change, and they do it with striking 70s-inspired juggernauts with sultry harmonica-blues echoes here and there. Conventional guitar solos pop up in every track. Listen quickly to the record, if not they will have another one out before you press play.
AllMusic said: “Punk without guitars has been done before — everything has. Few have done it with the blend of skill, imagination, and flat-out commitment that Osees exhibit on SORCS 80.”
TUTV: For the first time Osees general John Dwyer has incorporated layers of synths in
the band’s sonic, head over heels turmoil. Don’t expect top-notch tunes. This LP is about bulldozing for 38 minutes with punk velocity and schizophrenic electronics and I like it.
Heart-and-soul balladeer NICK CAVE and his BAD SEEDS present
the 3rd track from their forthcoming, 13th LP, Wild God that will
be shared with the world on August 30.
