by Dominic Acito (@mycamgrlromance)
Carnage, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis’ latest album (with an upcoming physical release date in June) surprised many fans as it was released nearly out of the blue. While Cave had referenced that he was working on an album on his blog, “The Red Hand Files,” no mention was made of a release date. To the delight of many, it was a needed good morning to wake up and discover there was new Nick Cave album in the world.
The album is distinctly a Nick Cave & Warren Ellis release. The rest of the legendary Bad Seeds (Nick Cave’s usual band) lend only traces of instrumentation, a result of the pandemic’s restrictions on personnel. Through these constraints we have a new style of Nick Cave album.
The last Bad Seeds record, Ghosteen, had devotees asking “where are the drums?” Don’t expect to find the drums on Carnage. There is however light percussion and the album has the sense of momentum and immediacy that drums usually deliver. Those who have taken to Warren Ellis’ masterful use of the Korg Mini and violin playing in generating an atmosphere will be pleased with this release. The atmosphere is so immersive that the album benefits from listening on headphones.
Carnage is contemplative. Lyrically it is the reflections of a prominent artist reacting to our suddenly changed lives. It soundtracks our failing world. Thoughts come and go and recurring themes build and connect from song to song. It would feel like a stream of consciousness record but it’s too refined to be classified as one.
Warren Ellis and Nick Cave have collaborated on a number of movie scores and this could easily and fittingly be the soundtrack to a muted twenty-four-hour news channel. It fits well to the inundating “unprecedented” events we are witnessing. It seems to be the product of an intensely creative period – scoring scenes of isolation, difficult news and a dearth of positive inspiration.
Often referred to as the “King of Dark Pop,” Cave is no stranger to descriptions of the morbid and macabre. This however feels much less fantastical than the stories told on albums like Murder Ballads. Fiction is replaced with the more surreal and oblique references to fact. Where once the horror stories told by Cave felt distant, Carnage hits a nerve. Even indirect references arouse a sense of anxiety.
The album does contain the most overtly political song in Nick Cave’s catalogue, “White Elephant,” containing specific references to the summer protests that dominated the news cycle in the summer of 2020. Where Cave would have been more direct, he approaches it more obliquely, drawing attention to the conflicts but leaving the listener to draw their own conclusions.
The first half of the album has an unmistakably tense atmosphere. It leaves the rest of the album sounding more subdued and hopeful as the songs shift to a more uplifting tone. The second half of the album sounds almost like the jubilation of a church choir starting with “Albuquerque,” a song which laments the inability to make good on plans made in more hopeful times. In this space, Cave finds his unique and strikingly religious-like place, acknowledging that there is a great deal of unnecessary suffering in the world, but that salvation might be just around the corner.
The album lifts us up as it concludes with a sense of rejoicing. Despite all that has gone on in the world in the past year, we can still feel good enough to say aloud “This morning is amazing and so are you.” Let’s leave it there.