Like no other artist in the independent rock/post punk movement, Nick Cave has attained canon status both for his ability to be prolific and pliable (remember, Cave has also recently added the title screenwriter to his resume). No one would dare assume that the same man that hatched the gothic, dour opus, The Boatman’s Call is the same as he who created the angry, brash, Grinderman. Practically the only similarity between them is the deep, mellifluously sexy voice bellowing cantos of black imagination. For lack of a better dichotomy, Australian legend Cave is one part preacher, Godfather and sage, and another riotous, fracturing and savage. While qualities of both exist in all his work, this is a definitive, easily understood like; this ferocious work entitled, Grinderman is most certainly of the latter vintage. Be warned.
The songs are excellent; perhaps not some of the most eloquent in Cave’s career, they all certainly warrant mention. Few songs – if any elsewhere, manage to get under the skin like the abominably charming “No Pussy Blues” a song that can, and should, give most male’s listening stern cause for self-examination. It is the hairy, tender extremes of modernist rockcraft. Cave reprises the title “Get It On” from 2003’s miserably received Nocturama, now a broken track with more snarls and pugnacious fight in its little finger than that entire record. It is as though Grinderman in both album and band form (remember, this is 3/7th’s of The Bad Seeds) is a means of tossing off all pretensions and spilling raw guts onto the cutting room floor. Evidence: “Depth Charge Ethyl”, an a-bomb, garage rock classic.
A final word on Cave has yet to be written; it may also be practically impossible to predict what that will be. He has detractors who would argue that his vacillating is disjointing, while fans would laud his depth. I fall into the latter category. There is nothing on Grinderman though that detracts from his more thoughtful work, and while it isn’t my preferred Cave, it is part of the bigger, richer picture that makes him one of the more unpredictable, rewarding artists of his kind. |