Nikki Stout writesAlbum Review: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ ‘Carnage’

Anyone at all familiar with Nick Cave’s recent work knows that “haunting” may be an overused yet apt descriptor for his songs of sorrow and stoic goth Christianity, and Carnage is no exception.

This eight track album released by Cave and frequent collaborator Warren Ellis gracefully ribbons through the times of sorrow, hope, grief, and finally the whisper of relief as a meditation on, well, the overall state of things as 2021 settles into itself.

Carnage is decidedly gentle, but not mellow. It is delicate in the way most tension is delicate. Simultaneously industrial and orchestral, Carnage offers pitch phasing as a sort of breeze blowing through its tracks, like a shift in the wind which comes seemingly out of nowhere. This tonal breeze beautifully compliments the choral singers present on the majority of tracks, bringing with them a gift of levity and offering of community.

Keep Reading…