The only absolute truth of our lives is that death will come eventually. No one escapes from it. Dealing with that fact has become ordinary, even manageable. But when death comes for a loved one in a moment that seems too soon, that, is completely different. Why is it so difficult to deal with and make sense of having someone close to you no longer?

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are a band that have nothing to prove. Their career spans four decades in which they have released seventeen albums, all of them, you could argue, are good, and several are downright essential for any music fan. And yet, in the last of these records, the band grows to find themselves pushing their sound beyond any frontiers they’ve encountered before. 

Ghosteen is an album of marvelous textures and magnificent arrangements, and yet it’s subdued, gentle and charming. Ghosteen uses synths, string arrangements and backing choruses to create a beautiful background for Nick Cave’s outstanding voice delivery and the detailed imagery of his lyricism, the beating core of the record. The album clearly doesn’t hesitate in showing what gives it its emotional power: overwhelming grief.

The release comes 4 years after Nick Cave’s son, Arthur, aged 15, tragically died in an accident. This influenced partially the band’s last release, but here, Cave is trying to deal with it directly and shows a personal side of his writing never seen before. Of course, as is the Australian crooner’s way, he does it with detailed analogies and poetic narratives, that help make the album feel cinematic. Moreover, the music is at times so spacious and fluid that it actually sounds as a movie score (something Nick Cave and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis have done), a particualrly sorrowful film.

It all starts with ‘Spinning Song’, an eerie song in which Cave speaks about Elvis Presley himself and the state of his art. The song introduces two core elements of the album right from the start. Mid-way through the track he reaches a high note and a chrous of voices accompanies him as he reaches the climax. Both of these traits appear in several songs and at times became the sole drive behind some of them. The next example of this, and one of the best tracks on the record is ‘Waiting For You’, a song that is fully commited to show Cave’s love to someone, and you can just tell by the line: “Just want to stay in the business of making you happy”. In the chorus, Cave repeats the title phrase in one of the best vocal performances of his career making for one truly unforgettable moment.

The album has two parts, in the first one the songs are shorter and loosely connected each having a particular sound that marks the rhythm of the album. There’s ‘Bright Horses’, a beautiful ballad that is pushed by a woman’s voice, while bells and a piano embellish the background synth. There’s ‘Galleon Ship’, one of the few songs in the album that is completely driven by synths and drones. The result can easily be the background in a documentary about space, but Cave’s lyrics deal with going forward in the wake of a tragedy and uses the analogy of the ships to find hope and meaning in a trip to ‘the morning sun’.

Ghosteen’s second part is three songs long, two of which are longer than 10 minutes. The first one ‘Ghosteen’ is a meditative piece, one where Cave seems to be speaking directly to the entitled subject. ‘Fireflies’ is a spoken word tune that it’s overshadowed by the two songs that surround it, mainly by the closing track, ‘Hollywood’. Easily the most epic song in the album, ‘Hollwood’ is also the most haunting. Is the only song featuring prominent drumming, and it’s constant basslines remind of The Bad Seeds’ past post-punk sound. Here, Nick Cave gets in full storytelling mode, recounting the story of Kisa, a woman who asked Buddha for help after losing her baby, only to be taught that everyone has lost someone. The fact that this relates directly to the main inpsiration of the album and the finishing chorus where Nick Cave recites “It’s a long way to find peace of mind” in a thrilling falsetto, make the song feel resoundingly poignant.

One phenomenon occurred after listening this album for the second or third time: after it finished I couldn’t and didn’t want to listen anything else than the band’s back catalogue. Suddenly, their other albums I cherish became brighter, more meaningful. That’s not to diminish Ghosteen by making some kind of comparison, but to say that the album is coherent with the band’s discography. Many albums throughout their career have made stylistic transformations that weren’t previously heard, and yet you can see it as a cohesive artistic output. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds add to that unparalleled work with an album of majestic beauty. Ghosteen is long, it sometimes feel as if its songs merge together into one, and definitely can’t be heard without paying full attention, but in the end, the experience is so rewarding that it’s worth to follow the band into their journey to make sense of the early loss of a loved one. And yes, it’s one of the best albums I’ve heard this year.