Honestly, if you were around in early 2013, you probably remember the feeling of "wait, what?" when the first notes of We No Who U R started floating around. It was quiet. Like, really quiet. For a band that had spent the better part of three decades alternating between fire-and-brimstone blues and the garage-rock carnage of Grinderman, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Push the Sky Away felt like a ghost entering the room.
It wasn’t just a new album. It was a pivot.
Mick Harvey, the guy who had been Nick’s right hand since their school days, was gone. That’s a massive deal. Without Harvey’s structural backbone, the sound drifted. It became vaporous. The "ghost-baby in the incubator," as Nick famously called it. If you’ve ever felt like the world was getting too loud, too digital, and too cluttered, this record is basically the sonic equivalent of staring at a blank wall until the wall starts talking back.
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The Magic of La Fabrique and Those Trembling Loops
They recorded the thing in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. At a place called La Fabrique. Imagine a 19th-century mansion that used to make dye for Napoleon’s uniforms. That’s where the band decamped. It wasn't the usual "let's plug in and bash it out" session.
Instead, they were surrounded by old books, massive gardens, and an almost oppressive sense of history.
Warren Ellis—now the primary sonic architect—wasn't just playing the violin anymore. He was tinkering with loops. He was using these tiny, flickering electronic pulses as the "heartbeat" for the songs. Producer Nick Launay has talked about how they’d record for hours, just capturing these "magic flukes." They weren't looking for the perfect take; they were looking for the perfect accident.
Why the "Wikipedia" Lyrics Actually Work
A lot of people got hung up on the lyrics when it first dropped. Nick Cave was suddenly singing about Hannah Montana and Wikipedia.
It felt weird.
People were used to him singing about Stagger Lee or the Old Testament. But Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Push the Sky Away was actually his way of grappling with the digital age. He was literally sitting at his computer, falling down Google rabbit holes, and turning that fragmented, weird experience into poetry. On Higgs Boson Blues, he’s name-dropping Miley Cyrus and Robert Johnson in the same breath while driving to Geneva. It’s existential dread for the 21st century.
- We No Who U R: A threat disguised as a lullaby.
- Jubilee Street: A song that starts as a whisper and ends like a plane taking off.
- Mermaids: Classic Cave—dark, funny, and deeply lonely.
Basically, the album is a giant meditation on what we do with our memories when everything is recorded and nothing is private.
What Most People Get Wrong About the "Quiet" Sound
There’s this misconception that this is a "mellow" record.
Wrong.
It’s tense. It’s actually incredibly high-stakes music, but the violence is internal now. Think about Water’s Edge. The way the bass rumbles—that’s Martyn Casey, by the way, playing like he’s trying to summon a tide. It’s not "soft rock." It’s a controlled burn.
When they play Jubilee Street live, it usually turns into a ten-minute exorcism. Nick starts yelling about "transforming" and "vibrating," and you realize the "restraint" on the record was just a way to keep the lid on a boiling pot.
The title track, Push the Sky Away, is the ultimate mission statement. It’s about persistence. It’s about the fact that if you don't keep pushing back against the weight of the world, it’ll crush you.
The Bad Seeds Without Mick Harvey
You can't talk about this era without mentioning the lineup shift. Barry Adamson came back for a bit, playing bass on a couple of tracks. Thomas Wydler’s drumming became more about texture than timekeeping.
But it’s Warren Ellis who really stepped into the void.
His influence turned the Bad Seeds from a rock band into an ambient orchestra. If you listen to their later stuff like Skeleton Tree or Ghosteen, you can hear the seeds being planted right here. This was the moment they decided they didn't need to be loud to be heavy.
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How to Actually Listen to This Album Today
If you’re just getting into it, or re-visiting it in 2026, don’t treat it like background music. You’ll miss the best parts.
- Use headphones. The mix is full of tiny details—loops that pan across the speakers, distant woodwinds, and ghost-vocals.
- Watch '20,000 Days on Earth'. It’s the documentary they filmed during the making of the album. It’s half-real, half-fiction, and explains the vibe better than any review ever could.
- Pay attention to the transitions. The way Finishing Jubilee Street bleeds into Higgs Boson Blues is one of the best sequencing moves in modern music.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Push the Sky Away isn't just a "pretty" album. It’s a survival manual for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the modern world. It’s about finding the "thing of wonder" in the middle of a Google search or a lonely street.
If you want to understand where the Bad Seeds are today, you have to start with this record. It’s the bridge between the old world and the new one.
Next Steps for You
Go back and listen to Higgs Boson Blues on a long drive or a late-night walk. Specifically, listen for the moment the drums finally kick in—it takes nearly four minutes. Once you do that, check out the live version from Live from KCRW to see how much more aggressive the song becomes when they take the "incubator" off. It’s the best way to see the two sides of the Bad Seeds: the studio craftsmen and the stage monsters.