Nick Cave cools down

The Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds record Push The Sky Away takes quiet minimalism to a degree not heard since The Boatman’s Call, a boring set of songs that led to a lifeless tour in the states nearly a decade ago. On it, the Bad Seeds are effective in creating a tense, foreboding atmosphere, but the pace never picks up and the unending darkness becomes oppressive. Every shining line that Cave delivers (and there are some doozys, even for him) is countered by a stinker lurking somewhere nearby, perhaps most glaringly on “Jubilee Street” where a weak line like “I got love in my tummy and a tiny little pain” is followed by a killer: “…and a 10 ton catastrophe on a 60 pound chain”. The strings are gorgeous, but like this entire project, the writing is at times so stunningly clumsy it’s distracting, and the terrible moments wind up canceling out the great ones. Maudlin? Sure. Dour? Quite a bit, yeah. Fun? No.