Ghosteen

Released

What do we really want from our grieving artists? When they go through immense tragedy and loss, how common is the cruel phantom thought in our heads: “Well this will make for good art”? As we all know, grief is different for everyone, the Loverman included. Like Nick Cave’s previous monuments to living in the shadow of pain, GHOSTEEN is not the cut and dry “here’s how I’ve been coping since losing my children” album that lets the audience off easy with gloom and minor bursts of catharsis. Rather we have almost complete catharsis; the album is a consistent ocean of ambient-based tracks that push our faces directly into the sunlight. Beneath beds of woozy electronics and lush piano and strings lies bare a bleeding heart, trying to violently wrench beauty from the jaws of ugly fate. It succeeds, and is the rare album of this tone that deserves the loudest volume you can take. Get lost in it.

Amelia Riggs