Stop what you’re doing and listen to this intense new song from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

If there was any uncertainty about the tone Nick Cave would take on his latest outing with The Bad Seeds, lay all that to rest. It is heavy, it is intense, it will send shivers down your spine, moreso than ever.

Cave and his longtime band release their latest album, Skeleton Tree, on Friday the 9th of September. The day before, he previews the album with a series of global screenings of a companion documentary, One More Time With Feeling. It screens locally at the Ritz Five on Thursday, September 8th, and tickets are available here.

Today, the first song from the record made its way into the world; “Jesus Alone” is a chilling, meditative tapestry of instrumental drone and spectral minimalism with Cave’s voice and words in the forefront. Lyrically, his narrator describes people around him various states of being:

“you’re a young man waking covered in blood that is not yours”

or

“you’re an African doctor harvesting tear ducts”

or

“you’re a distant memory in the mind of your creator, don’t you see?”

And the refrain finds Cave reaching out, wrapped up in uncertainty but hoping for a connection – “with my voice, I am calling you.”

Listen to “Jesus Alone” below.