Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Live God (CD Format)

Live God—Nick Cave’s sprawling onstage response to 2024’s Wild God, taken from two years of international touring—is all lightning. Surrounded by a version of The Bad Seeds that includes Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood on bass and a cadre of mighty backing vocalists, all of Cave’s best modes intertwine here. He is the wicked leader of a dynamite and demented rock band one moment, as on this savage rendering of “Red Right Hand,” and an evangelist possessed of a Pentecostal power the next, as on “White Elephant.” And then, of course, there are the ballads, like his song of lovely surrender “Into My Arms,” and the haunted probes of humanity, epitomized by the keening “Bright Horses.” Wild God always seemed like a capstone for Cave, the mark at the end of an era of enormous upheaval, both personal and global, and productivity. Live God doubles down on that feeling, sweeping the highs of a monumental 40-year career into an incredibly charged 18-song set. Live God travels from “Tupelo” to “Cinnamon Horses,” from “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry” to “Frogs,” from past to present and back, a full-volume reiteration of the wonder and magnetism of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds in command of a full house.