Whether this is just a one-off or the start of more regular collaborations between Nell Smith and The Flaming Lips remains to be seen. No More Shall We Part isn’t that suitable for Smith’s voice, but the closing We Know Who You Are redeems matters: it makes for a suitably contemplative and unsettling end to the album. Red Right Hand has taken on a new familiarity since being used as the theme tune to Peaky Blinders and has been covered by a multitude of artists in recent years, so its appearance on Where The Viaduct Looms doesn’t have the impact it should. Wisely, Coyne has stayed away from Cave’s more menacing murder ballads (we can only imagine how unsettling Stagger Lee would be as sung by a teenager) – Into My Arms in particular seems to have a new dimension added to it, the stately beauty of the original being transformed into a twinkly, spacey ballad. The track selection will be familiar to any casual Cave fan, with two of his best known songs, Into My Arms and Red Right Hand both featuring. Some of the covers even rival Cave’s versions for effectiveness – A Weeping Song and The Ship Song are both gorgeous renditions with Smith being perfectly backed by the Lips’ trademark woozy electronica. Girl In Amber still manages to sound impossibly sad and slightly eerie, and O Children builds steadily upwards in its intensity.
THE FLAMING LIPS NELL FULL
Cave’s songs, usually so full of menace, mystique and melancholy, are given new light under Smith’s light, airy voice, and the fact that she was unfamiliar with the source material means that no tracks are treated with any over-reverence.Īll the covers are pretty faithful to the originals, so there shouldn’t be too much outrage from any Cave purists. It’s a concept that really shouldn’t work, but somehow does. When discussing a collaboration, Coyne suggested to Smith that they perform some Nick Cave songs – an artist 50 years her senior who she’d never heard of before. Lead singer Wayne Coyne noticed her from the crowd, befriended her family, and has acted as a musical mentor to Smith over the last few years.
The seed for Where The Viaduct Looms was sown when Nell Smith went to see The Flaming Lips in Calgary dressed as a parrot. It should, therefore, come as no surprise to anyone that their latest record is a collection of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds cover versions, with a 14-year-old girl from Leeds on lead vocals. Whether it be an album consisting of four separate CDs designed to be played simultaneously (1997’s Zaireeka), performing in a literal bubble during the Covid-19 pandemic, or recording an experimental psych-rock record with Miley Cyrus, the Oklahoma band do not stick to a predictable path. In summary a star Is Born.It’s fair to say that The Flaming Lips do things a little bit differently to most. The Lips were once supportive of Miley Cyrus’ career, but nothing can compare to this unprecedented debut by a talented quinceañera like Nell Smith.
His voice shines more as Cave’s “deconstructed” classics follow each other, and thanks to this album he will gain more followers than “Kicking Against The Pricks” ever heard. The thing is, the young Smith’s debut couldn’t have been better on all levels.
A couple of years ago the Lips, after a show, were approached by a 14-year-old Canadian fan, Nell Smith, and when they heard her sing they thought that her angelic voice could represent an incomparable contrast with the darkness of Nick Cave – a concept enhanced by the absolute ignorance of the repertoire of the Australian singer by little Nell.
They could even hit millionaire hits with some of their avant garde quirks, like this totally accessible cool pop album, even though it’s an experiment from start to finish: “Where The Viaduct Looms” is a covers album by the singer from cult Nick Cave, and his darker and nihilistic songs are arranged in the service of the adolescent voice of the hitherto unknown Nell Smith. If there is a band capable of doing whatever it wants without losing its foreground on the alternative rock scene, that is The Flaming Lips.
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