So basically this album is every bit as harrowing and melancholy as you would expect it to be. As the tremendous singer-songwriter-storyteller that he is, Nick Cave on his new album Skeleton Tree uses his plethora of sonic tools to paint a sorrowful picture with deep running concerns in loss and grief.

Having tragically lost his son little over a year ago, with only part of this album in creation at the time, this album displays the shattering effect and resonations such an event has had. One need look no further than the song “I Need You”, in which the emotion in Cage’s voice is near palpable, and definitely heartrending.

Focusing more on the instrumentation, everything feels expansive and yet somewhat vacant. With synths eerily sound-scaping the terrain onto which Cave often seems to simply wander atop, with delicate and often surreal worlds being wounded into its surface.

With death being so constantly close in Nick Cave’s discography, its rare to find it so ever-present without it being used as a dramatic or metaphoric device so often employed in his stories.

An experience not to be delved into lightly, and with this incredible new album, this year is shaping up to be one in which flirtations with death are abandoned for sheer confrontation.