I've been knocking together Spotify playlists for all the annual retro-active features that I've been posting on here and my trawls through 1981's hidden gems introduced me to the Birthday Party's 'Release the Bats', a clattering ode to vampire sex that provided Nick Cave's previous incarnation with a Goth club floor filler and something of a breakthrough hit. It's a pretty hilarious spot of theatrical bombast and probably occupies the same awkward place in the singer's back catalogue as 'Club Tropicana' does for George Michael these days - I was tempted to shout out a request for it when he rolled through town last month but I think he might have got down from the stage and decked me with the mic stand if I had. That Nick Cave is still standing is reward enough after thirty years of sleazy living and killer records - lesser mortals would be waist-deep in wanton nostalgia by this point in their careers but he's never been one to rest on his laurels and 'Push The Sky Away' is as pulpy and captivating as anything he's released in the past. I had the rare pleasure of hearing this album for the first time live on stage with a full band (including a string section and a children's choir!) when busted the whole thing out from beginning to end live at Paris' Le Trianon, a velvet-lined theatre tailor made for cushioning Cave's lush tones and the deep, intoxicating brew served up by the Bad Seeds - he's always good live but seeing someone play dramatic lead with such unwavering panache and smoothly withheld menace was genuinely breathtaking, one to put every other gig you see into sharp perspective. It's also a refreshing poke in the eye to bands much younger than his who are relying entirely on older material to draw the crowds and every track on 'Push....' is potent enough to justify a public airing with the band's full momentum behind it. If you don't get the chance to hear this shit live then make sure you dim the lights and pour a cocktail before letting opener 'We No Who U R' entice you into this seductive cabaret, Cave's dark velvet croon ushering you down the rabbithole as subtle chimes of twinkling synths cushion your tumble through layer upon layer of dreamlike fabric. 'Wide Lovely Eyes' unfolds slowly as a softly-woven tale of enchantment fills the air before 'Water's Edge' introduces a prowling bassline like a predator into the room and that burgundy aura of tingling menace that Cave masters so well starts to permeate the atmosphere. The reason this dude's been able to keep enough spice in his music to send frissons up the most frigid of spines for decades is that he can turn a tender ballad into a looming threat with but an arch of the eyebrow - you should run but there's something just too devilishly fascinating in his delivery to be abandoned and there's no option but to drink deeper and deeper. 'Jubilee Street' is perhaps the most conventional slice of the pie, a slow-burning six and a half minute tour through the underworld that could belong on any of his albums - he does however add an extra dimension to it with the sparser flashback 'Finishing Jubilee Street' later in the record, peering in from the other side of the mirror as he delves into self-inspired fantasy that acts as a perfect counterweight to the former's textbook dramatic climax. 'Mermaids' reminds us that he's still got plenty of fire in his loins, serving up some Grinderman-style graphic imagery in a desolate murmur over hypnotic siren swells before 'We Real Cool' takes us even further inward, mastering delicate swathes of silence as exquisitely as the low, insistent pulse of the bass that envelops the track like you're only inches away from the guy's heart. 'Higgs Boson Blues' permits him an eight minute flight of fancy, tossing in a string of present day cultural references that lead the narrative preciously close to total bollocks at times but allow the band to gradually step it up a notch and follow Cave through another of his apocalyptic crescendos before the ethereal title track neatly draws a line under the evening's proceedings and you emerge back out into serene reality. Nobody can hold an audience spellbound like this, nobody can cradle you so gracefully and shake you so violently - even when Cave's phoning it in he sounds jaw-droppingly vital and he holds your gaze for every single second of 'Push The Sky Away' like a tenebrous sorcerer. You don't need me to tell you how good this is or rattle on about how it compares to 'From Her To Eternity', just bag yourself a copy and drink deeply in a rare old vintage from a source of dark wonder that is as potent as it's ever been.
Check out : 'We No Who U R'.....the door's open, won't you come on in?
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