Grinderman

Grinderman (2 - Deluxe Edition)

Genre: INDIE / ALTERNATIVE

Boomkat Product Review:

*DELUXE PACKAGE INCLUDES 60-PAGE BOOKLET AND POSTER* Returning for a second chomp of the cherry, Nick Cave's Grinderman project is back with a new album that elevates the band's caddish dirty old man schtick to the next level. Cave and his fellow Bad Seeds really hit their stride on this sophomore airing of the grimy side-project, expanding the range and repertoire of its swamp-rock sleaze... but not too much. Musically, Grinderman 2 certainly features a broadened agenda and signs that the quartet might just be taking their work a little more seriously this time around. Warren Ellis has described the record as "like stoner rock meets Sly Stone via Amon Düül", and you'll be able to hear where he's coming from early on in the album's sequence, whilst sifting between the motoring, funk-frazzled dirge of 'Mickey Mouse And The Goodbye Man' and the industrial raunch of 'Worm Tamer'. On a first listen through the LP, 'When My Baby Comes' is particularly striking; it'd be hard to have imagined anything with this kind of primal eloquence appearing on the first Grinderman LP. Underneath its jarringly beautiful string arrangement, the song is still mightily visceral however - a bit like the band themselves, who always appear thoroughly dignified in their suited sartorial sheen, though you know full-well that beneath all the pomp and finery you'll find four swarthy, gristly cavemen. Poetic cavemen though. Lyrically, Cave remains at his most gleefully, cartoonishly libidinous, and a piece like 'Kitchenette' taps back into the sordid tones of the earlier Grinderman material, swaggering through a grubby blues with unprecedented degenerate skill. Following this, the Dylanesque 'Palaces Of Montezuma' feels all the more remarkable. It's a wordy tumble through 'Like A Rolling Stone'-esque sequences and pseudo-gospel tones that helps pack the album's latter stages with a rarified air of old-school rock & roll bluster.

CD (3)