By JJT (written for ThinkChristian.net)

If Nick Cave identifies with Jesus on Skeleton Tree, it seems to be more through shared suffering than hope of resurrection.

Music, like religion, can be an escape from the pain, confusion, or even drudgery of daily life. There is plenty of escapist pop music out there to choose from and no shortage of escapist Biblespeak. For Australian artist Nick Cave, however, music seems to be the only vein left with any blood in it.

Following the death of his 15 year-old son last year, Cave decided to swim directly into the undertow. The result, Skeleton Tree, is one of the most moving, desperately sad, and deeply human artistic endeavors of the year. It is certainly the most compelling work I have ever heard from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and that’s saying something.

A teacher once told me that the Old Testament book of Judges is all about Jesus because it describes just how dark and terrible the human experience is without him. In a similar way, the songs of Skeleton Tree, though never specifically chronicling the death of Cave’s son, are about that tragedy nonetheless. It swirls with ghosts, evoking emotional devastation with poetic, often oblique lyrics and instrumentation that is fragmented, haunting, deeply melodic, and profoundly unsettling. This melodious, macabre, melancholia is overwhelmingly listenable. I resonate with Cave’s meditation on a human level. I let it wash over me and realize that sometimes it’s just good to know that we are not alone in our pain.

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