It's not about Arthur. Keep telling yourself that. Nick Cave has said himself that only one song on
Skeleton Tree was written after the death of his son (although they were all recorded in its wake), and he's not said what that one song is. So the album isn't about Arthur. Well, most of it isn't. Well, it wasn't intended to be when it was written. So let's put Arthur to one side. We shouldn't make it about him anyway. That'd get in the way of writing an honest review. I mean: what if the album's rubbish? What kind of heartless bastard would you have to be to slate it in that case? Who'd slag off
Kindertotenleider?
So let's treat
Skeleton Tree as just another stage in the evolution of Nick Cave (and sometimes the Bad Seeds). There was the old-time Old Testamential Nick Cave of, say, "Tupelo"; there was the gleeful
Grand Guignol of "Stagger Lee"; the sleaze of
Dig, Lazarus, Dig! and the Grinderman side-project (which might as well be a Bad Seeds spin off); the introspection of
White Lunar (another Seeds spin-off in all but name) and
Push the Sky Away. This is just another layer accreted.
Front Row on Radio 4 talked about this album as a sequel to
Sky, and it does feel something like that - more of a development than a sequel, but something in the same vein. But there's a difference; a big difference.
Before now, at his darkest, Nick Cave offered a way out. Either there was a knowing wink to the camera: think of the videos to "
The Weeping Song", or "
Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow", or there was a blast of noise that pulled you through to the other side, as in this live version of "
Jubilee Street". And in
Skeleton Tree?
