Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Wild God Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

Wild God scored 89 on Metacritic, topped Uncut's albums of the year list and earned two Grammy nominations. It reached No. 2 in Australia and No. 1 in Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

This edition

Lyrics included
Pressed in the EU
Stereo mix

About the album

Nick Cave started writing this one on New Year's Day 2023, and it sounds like a man who decided to begin the year in a good mood and see how long it lasted. The answer, happily, is the whole album: Wild God is the most joyful, open-hearted Bad Seeds record in years.

Cave and Warren Ellis produced it, starting at Soundtree in London and carrying on at Miraval in Provence, with Dave Fridmann mixing and Radiohead's Colin Greenwood stepping in on bass. The title track builds to a gospel-sized climax, "Frogs" rides a guitar line George Vjestica recorded in one take after a night thinking about "Wichita Lineman," and "Long Dark Night" is tender and hushed. "O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)" folds in a recording of the late Anita Lane's voice, with Carly Paradis whistling, and "Song of the Lake" opens the record in grand style.

The Guardian and The Independent both gave it five stars, and MOJO ranked it the second-best album of the year. The record was nearly called Conversion, or possibly Joy; both stayed on as song titles, which is very thrifty of him.

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