There is a raw, even brutal starkness to the cover, title and overall tone of Skeleton Tree – the sixteenth Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album and the first since the horrific death of his son, Arthur.

In a remarkable lecture that nailed Cave’s creative impulse entitled ‘The Secret History of the Love Song’, the singer memorably said: “A great gaping hole was blasted out of my world by the unexpected death of my father when I was nineteen years old. The way I learned to fill this hole, this void, was to write.”

In the wake of every parent’s worst nightmare, Cave again confronts the void by writing. Skeleton Tree is a sparse and achingly beautiful album, self-produced by Cave and Warren Ellis, and featuring minimal synth loops and some of the most haunting piano playing of Cave’s entire career. The usual swagger of the Bad Seeds is replaced by a meditative, and ultimately soothing mood.