# Wild God
**Wild God** is the eighteenth studio album by the Australian band [Nick Cave](https://www.edgepedia.org/nick-cave) & The Bad Seeds, released on 30 August 2024 on streaming, CD, and vinyl through Play It Again Sam[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) • [2](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/nick-cave-wild-god/). Produced by Nick Cave with his long-time collaborator [Warren Ellis](https://www.edgepedia.org/warren-ellis) and mixed by David Fridmann, it marks the return of the full Bad Seeds lineup after several albums on which the band was largely absent[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) • [3](https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2024/09/06/nick-cave-wild-god-est-un-disque-joyeux-peuple-de-morts_6305807_3246.html).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist and ordinal | Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' 18th studio album[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) |
| Released | 30 August 2024, on streaming, CD, standard vinyl, and limited gray and clear vinyl[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) |
| Length and tracks | 10 tracks, 44:21 total[4](https://www.allmusic.com/album/wild-god-mw0004238992) |
| Production | Produced by Cave and Warren Ellis; mixed by David Fridmann[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) |
| Recording | Miraval in Provence and Soundtree in London; also Poons Head, Perth[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) • [4](https://www.allmusic.com/album/wild-god-mw0004238992) |
| Writing start | Cave began writing the album on New Year's Day 2023[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) |
| Guests | Colin Greenwood (bass), Luis Almau (nylon string and acoustic guitar)[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) |
| UK chart peak | Number 5 on the Official Albums Chart (first charted 12 September 2024)[5](https://www.officialcharts.com/albums/nick-cave-the-bad-seeds-wild-god/) |
## Background and recording
Cave began writing the album on [New Year's Day](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-day) 2023[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/). He said he wanted the Bad Seeds back in the fold after the reduced lineups of the preceding records: on *[Skeleton Tree](https://www.edgepedia.org/skeleton-tree)* (2016) the album had to stay raw, and on *Ghosteen* (2019) the songs were too vulnerable to carry drums and bass, so the full band had not appeared together since *Push the Sky Away* in 2013[3](https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2024/09/06/nick-cave-wild-god-est-un-disque-joyeux-peuple-de-morts_6305807_3246.html). "Because I think they've been sort of put out to pasture for a while, they just came sort of roaring back," Cave told the ABC's Zan Rowe[6](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/featured-music/feature-albums1/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-wild-god-feature-album-review/104289922).
Sessions took place at Miraval Studios in Provence and Soundtree in London, with additional recording at Poons Head in Perth[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) • [4](https://www.allmusic.com/album/wild-god-mw0004238992). Alongside the returning drummer Thomas Wydler, Radiohead's Colin Greenwood joined on bass, and Luis Almau contributed nylon string and acoustic guitar[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/) • [6](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/featured-music/feature-albums1/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-wild-god-feature-album-review/104289922).
## Music and themes
Across ten tracks the band, in the words of the album's official release, "dance between convention and experimentation, taking left-turns and detours"[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/). The record is built around gospel choirs, orchestral strings, and bells, and opens with "Song of the Lake", a track whose line borrowed from "Humpty Dumpty" ("All the king's horses and all the king's men/Couldn't put us back together again") takes on a new weight in the mouth of a singer who has lost two sons[6](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/featured-music/feature-albums1/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-wild-god-feature-album-review/104289922) • [2](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/nick-cave-wild-god/).
**Joy and grief.** The album was originally conceived as an ode to joy: Cave's first proposed title was simply *Joy*, which he abandoned as too misleading[2](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/nick-cave-wild-god/). Its centerpiece "Joy" delivers the record's most quoted line, "We've all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy", sung over a somber piano blues by a man visited by the ghost of a teenage boy[2](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/nick-cave-wild-god/) • [6](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/featured-music/feature-albums1/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-wild-god-feature-album-review/104289922). Cave has been careful to draw a distinction: "It's not a happy record... For me, the idea of joy is a momentary exclamation of the present... out of an understanding of loss and suffering"[6](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/featured-music/feature-albums1/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-wild-god-feature-album-review/104289922). He described the album to *The Atlantic* as a series of songs in which "joy is not happiness... it's rising out of an understanding of the base nature of our lives into an explosion of something beautiful"[7](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/nick-cave-bad-seeds-wild-god-album-grief-masculinity/680396/).
Several songs carry explicit memorials. "O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)" is dedicated to [Anita Lane](https://www.edgepedia.org/anita-lane), Cave's former partner and early Bad Seeds collaborator, who died in 2021; the track incorporates a recorded phone conversation in which she laughs and reminisces about co-writing "From Her to Eternity" with Cave[6](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/featured-music/feature-albums1/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-wild-god-feature-album-review/104289922) • [2](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/nick-cave-wild-god/). The final track, "As the Waters Cover the Sea", is a hymn-like close to the record[7](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/nick-cave-bad-seeds-wild-god-album-grief-masculinity/680396/), and "Frogs" opens with a stark Cain-and-Abel reference before building to Cave's ecstatic singing over a frog leaping from a gutter in the Sunday rain[7](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/nick-cave-bad-seeds-wild-god-album-grief-masculinity/680396/) • [6](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/featured-music/feature-albums1/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-wild-god-feature-album-review/104289922).
Comparisons with the earlier trilogy run throughout the critical reception. Reviewers heard the album combining the experimental sonics of *Skeleton Tree* and *Ghosteen* with more traditional song structures[4](https://www.allmusic.com/album/wild-god-mw0004238992), and noted the title track's debt to the gospel-rock of *Abbatoir Blues* and its quotation of "Jubilee Street" from *Push the Sky Away*[6](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/featured-music/feature-albums1/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-wild-god-feature-album-review/104289922).
## Reception and commercial performance
The album received strongly positive reviews. *The Guardian* awarded five stars and called it "a masterpiece" that "will make you fall back in love with life"; *The Independent*, also five stars, described "an album that will have you believing in the transformative power of love"; *Uncut* gave 9/10, and *The Sunday Times* called it "a gospel rock riot, the Bad Seeds at their most raucous in 20 years"[1](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/). Pitchfork's reviewer found the record "as haunted as it is healing", arguing that joy and sorrow are less opposites than "adjoining rooms in a house"[2](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/nick-cave-wild-god/).
Commercially, *Wild God* debuted at number 5 on the UK Official Albums Chart, spending two weeks in the top 40, and reached number 3 on the Official Albums Chart Update[5](https://www.officialcharts.com/albums/nick-cave-the-bad-seeds-wild-god/). It placed at number 36 among the Official best-selling vinyl albums of 2024 in the United Kingdom[8](https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-best-selling-vinyl-albums-and-singles-of-2024/).
## Touring and live album
The Wild God Tour followed the release across Europe and beyond in 2024, with a lineup that included [Colin Greenwood](https://www.edgepedia.org/colin-greenwood) and a four-member gospel choir[9](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/03/nick-cave-the-bad-seeds-review-first-direct-arena-leeds). The tour yielded the live album *Live God*, an 18-track collection that captures performances of songs from *Wild God* alongside Bad Seeds catalog favorites such as "From Her To Eternity", "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry", and "Into My Arms"; Cave called the shows "an antidote to despair"[10](https://www.nickcave.com/releases/live-god/).
## References
1. [Wild God – OUT NOW, Nick Cave official site](https://www.nickcave.com/news/wild-god-out-now/)
2. [Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Wild God Album Review, Pitchfork](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/nick-cave-wild-god/)
3. [Nick Cave : « "Wild God" est un disque joyeux peuplé de morts », Le Monde (2024)](https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2024/09/06/nick-cave-wild-god-est-un-disque-joyeux-peuple-de-morts_6305807_3246.html)
4. [Wild God, AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/album/wild-god-mw0004238992)
5. [WILD GOD – NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS, Official Charts Company](https://www.officialcharts.com/albums/nick-cave-the-bad-seeds-wild-god/)
6. [Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds — Wild God, Double J (ABC)](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/featured-music/feature-albums1/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-wild-god-feature-album-review/104289922)
7. [How Grief Changed Nick Cave, The Atlantic (December 2024)](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/nick-cave-bad-seeds-wild-god-album-grief-masculinity/680396/)
8. [The Official best-selling vinyl albums and singles of 2024, Official Charts Company](https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-best-selling-vinyl-albums-and-singles-of-2024/)
9. [Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds review – an incredible mass spiritual outpouring, The Guardian (November 2024)](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/03/nick-cave-the-bad-seeds-review-first-direct-arena-leeds)
10. [Live God, Nick Cave official site](https://www.nickcave.com/releases/live-god/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical works and recordings › Albums and recorded releases › Studio albums › Progressive and art rock albums*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license