Though the majority of Skeleton Tree had been written and recorded before Nick Cave’s teenage son Arthur died in a tragic cliffside fall, it is almost impossible to explore this record without that context. The accident took place in July 2015, toward the end of the album’s recording sessions, and Cave did go on to alter certain lyrics in the wake of Arthur’s passing. Inevitably, a deep sense of grief and loss seeps through these slow and considered songs, which follow the lead of 2013’s Push the Sky Away to hang quietly over off-kilter loops, synths and other electronic elements introduced by close collaborator Warren Ellis. For someone who has exuded such primal confidence in the past, here Cave sounds muted, unmoored and racked with doubt. Yet his songwriting remains as focused and penetrating as ever, right from opener “Jesus Alone”. On the first of several songs that seem to touch on reaching out to someone across an impossible gulf, he sings, “With my voice I am calling you” against a low rumble of distortion and an ominous whistling motif. As always with Cave, his employment of Biblical themes only marks the start of his remarkably vivid imagery: “You’re a young man wakin’/Covered in blood that is not yours” becomes “You’re a drug addict lyin’ on your back/In a Tijuana hotel room”, among other transfigurations. Some tracks feel almost too raw and personal for us to be hearing as outsiders. “Girl in Amber” unfolds like a devastating hymnal, while the anguished “I Need You” falls into a mantra-like repetition of its title phrase. By contrast, other tracks rank among Cave’s most accessible and relatable. Haloed by standout vocals from Danish soprano Else Torp, “Distant Sky” is a gorgeous song of devotion, both familial and romantic. And on the mellower “Rings of Saturn”, Cave’s near-rapped flow of lyrics leads to a striking epiphany: “And this is the moment, this is exactly what she is born to be/And this is what she does, and this is what she is.” Cave would focus more entirely on Arthur’s absence on 2019’s Ghosteen. But as a chorus of vocals joins him on the closing title track, it’s hard not to hear the final line—“It’s alright now”—as the start of the long and painful process of learning to live without someone.