Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds with "Push the Sky Away"

               Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, hailing from Melbourne, have released their fifteenth studio album, Push the Sky Away. Shot to fifteen seconds of fame when “O Children,” off Lyre of Orpheus (2004), appeared in a scene of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have steadily been making great music for the past twenty-nine years, exploring every angle of the dark, mellow, churchy-yet-rock genre they’ve cut out for themselves.

               Push the Sky Away is a refreshing change from the dark, frantic rock sound of Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! (2008), and has a dreamy quality about it, evident in the soft, almost transcendent “Wide Lovely Eyes.” Of course, Cave can’t go without at least a nod to his darker side, which is where “Water’s Edge” comes in, appropriately weird and frankly, a little creepy. It’s definitely not one of the best on the album, but hey, Nick Cave does what he wants.

               Nick Cave is delightfully weird, and Push the Sky Away reflects his personality perfectly. Cave, in a recent interview with Pitchfork, reported that much of the lyrical inspiration for this album came from “Googling curiosities,” and it shows. Whereas many past Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds albums followed a narrative thread, this one jumps around, with track names that range from “Mermaids” to “Higgs Boson Blues.”

               “Higgs Boson Blues” is a great track that shows Cave’s development over the past few years; he has broken out of the Biblical touch that made him so intriguing, and is pushing his way into modern pop culture, evident in his naming one of the tracks “We No Who U R,” arguably the best track on the album. “Higgs Boson Blues” speaks to a range of current issues, mentioning both Miley Cyrus and the recently discovered Higgs Boson particle. Cave uses “Higgs Boson Blues” as a means to explore the big question that he now faces. He compares himself to those that discovered the particle, likely the secret to the structure of the universe, who are now left wondering what else, if anything, there is to explore. After exploring every corner of a genre they’ve created for themselves, where can Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds go?

               Cave answers his own question on the last track, “Push the Sky Away,” a song that brings us back to the signature churchiness of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, an organ accompanying Cave’s chant-like lyrics. They say the sky is the limit, but Cave closes with a song about the destruction that boundary. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are out to redefine limits, and there’s no way to know what they’ll think of next.

               I’d give this album a B; I don’t love every track, but the ones I do love, I really love. If you plan on making it to SXSW or Coachella this year, be sure to check them out!

Tess Melchreit

Review of Tegan and Sara's "Heartthrob"

         

            The indie world’s favorite twins are back and better than ever. Tegan and Sara’s new album, Heartthrob, their first in four years, is radically different from past work from the Canadian duo. Starting out in the folk-rock genre, Tegan and Sara have been guiding their work away from their guitar-and-keyboard roots, evident on their 2009 album, Sainthood. Though the album carried a distinct indie-rock sound, their progress toward creating a different sound could be heard on several tracks, most notably “Northshore” and “Hell.”

Even so, the step that Tegan and Sara took with Heartthrob was enormous, and intentionally so. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Tegan said, “We didn’t want to take a small step. We wanted to take a big step.” Heartthrob still carries subtle hints of their indie-rock roots, but is largely dominated by some gigantic bass and a dance-y indie pop sound.

“Now I’m All Messed Up,” arguably the best song on the album, is also the farthest shot from Tegan and Sara’s indie-rock beginnings. Deep bass and synth-pop own this track, but the twins manage to deliver lyrics as heartbreaking as any of their indie-rock tracks. This track takes us far from the Tegan and Sara that we would quietly jam out to in our room, and gives us a new Tegan and Sara that we blast in the car, screaming along to at the top of our lungs.

“Love They Say” and “I’m Not Your Hero,” equally indie-pop as the rest of Heartthrob, are nevertheless reminiscent of Tegan and Sara’s indie-rock days. Softer, slower, and with less bass and synth than the majority of Heartthrob, they could work equally as well on 2009’s Sainthood. They deliver their quintessential T&S lyrics that hurt in all the right ways, letting their words win us over in these tracks rather than their new sound.

“Shock To Your System,” falling between the newness of “Now I’m All Messed Up” and the more indie-rockness of “Love They Say,” is an accurate read on this entire album. It’s got bass, it’s got synth-pop, it’s got heart-wrenching lyrics, and it’s got that unmatched Tegan and Sara harmony. It encapsulates all the positive points of Heartthrob and is a solid, solid finish to the album.

Usually, an indie-rock band’s decision to venture into the indie-pop world marks the end of something; their fans’ loyalty, their career, making good jams in general. In Tegan and Sara’s case, however, the change was made flawlessly and produced an absolutely fantastic piece of work. Heartthrob is an enormously different album from their past music, a change that can be loved and appreciated by both old and new Tegan and Sara fans.

Tess Melchreit