Nick Cave began making last year’s quietly intense Skeleton Tree (Bad Seed Ltd.) well before his son Arthur’s tragic fall from a cliff in July 2015, but its brooding tone and crushing, inescapable darkness were clearly heightened by the impact of his passing. The opening couplet on the first song, “Jesus Alone,” features Cave intoning solemnly, “You fell from the sky / Crash landed in a field.” It’s hard not to interpret every line and sound—like the distant cries that emerge at the ends of tracks—as by-products of Cave’s loss.…
Nick Cave began making last year’s quietly intense Skeleton Tree (Bad Seed Ltd.) well before his son Arthur’s tragic fall from a cliff in July 2015, but its brooding tone and crushing, inescapable darkness were clearly heightened by the impact of his passing. The opening couplet on the first song, “Jesus Alone,” features Cave intoning solemnly, “You fell from the sky / Crash landed in a field.” It’s hard not to interpret every line and sound—like the distant cries that emerge at the ends of tracks—as by-products of Cave’s loss.…