Nick Cave’s World Of Pain

Nick Cave At The Forum 2018 by Alyson Camus

I posted my initial reaction to Nick Caves (brilliantly named) Ghosteen yesterday (here), essentially: where are the songs? Alyson Camus wrote a first review yesterday as well (here). BUUUUT, I’ve found myself returning to it, and I think ALyson is going through the same tug.

Though I am put off my the inundation of raves, even so, much like a much more cheerful (and, to be frank, better), Nick of yore, I don’t know what it is but there’s definitely something going on upstairs. My grade is up to a “B+” and rising, as I sink into its sweet moroseness and disquieting cold comfort, Alyson compared him to latter day David Bowie or Leonard Cohen, I would add Sufjan Stevens circa Carrie And Lowell and Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me.

Bowie and Cohen are relatively lucky, they were essentially dealing with their own deaths, Nick is dealing with something that can’t really be dealt with, a horror with no escape, there is no Lazarus, there is no resurrected teen, there is only Ghosteen. And Nick, waiting for peace to come.