Nick Cave and his longtime collaborator Warren Ellis just wrapped up a North American tour, and they’re about to release the concert film This Much I Know To Be True. Today, Cave and Ellis have announced another project: A spoken-word album called Seven Songs. Cave and Ellis recorded the new LP during the sessions that gave us the 2021 album Carnage, but the new record will take them in a different direction.

Per a press release Seven Psalms will feature “seven spoken word pieces set to music,” along with a 12-minute instrumental. You could plausibly describe large pieces of both Carnage and the Bad Seeds’ 2019 double album Ghosteen as “spoken word pieces set to music,” but Cave never presented them that way. The new record will come on 10″ vinyl, with all the spoken-word pieces on one side and the instrumental on the other. In a press release, Cave had this to say:

While in lockdown I wrote a number of psalms, or small, sacred songs — one a day for a week. The seven psalms are presented as one long meditation — on faith, rage, love, grief, mercy, sex and praise. A strange, contemplative offering borne of an uncertain time. I hope you like it.

Below, check out a brief but heavy preview of Seven Psalms, as well as the tracklist.

TRACKLIST:
01 “How Long Have I Waited?”
02 “Have Mercy On Me”
03 “I Have Trembled My Way Deep”
04 “I Have Wandered All My Unending Days”
05 “Splendour, Glorious Splendour”
06 “Such Things Should Never Happen”
07 “I Come Alone And To You”
08 “Psalm Instrumental”

Seven Psalms is out 6/17, and you can pre-order it here.