Album review: Grinderman, 'Grinderman 2'
3.5 stars (out of 4)
Nick Cave pared down his longtime band, the Bad Seeds, to a lean, mean quartet in 2007 to make the first Grinderman album. It had all the earmarks of a mid-life crisis: A bunch of aging hell-raisers revisiting their chaotic roots in punk-blues. But Cave and his accomplices – Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos – subverted that premise with wicked humor, embracing their fading youth with self-deprecating cackles and gleeful cacophony. Next to the Bad Seeds’ orchestral dynamism, Grinderman sounded like undiluted nastiness, a black comedy of shrieks, howls and leers.
The project was invigorating enough for all involved to inspire a sequel, and “Grinderman 2” (Anti) is in many ways even more outrageous. In contrast to the Bad Seeds, the music is less fussed-over, a collection of studio jams by the quartet that has been pounded into loose shape. The effect is disorienting, the instruments often sounding like they’re throwing tantrums or coughing up fur balls while trying to keep what’s left of the song on course. Casey’s bass is the beast in the room, stomping where it will, hacking a path through the maelstrom of Ellis’ backfiring stringed instruments, Cave’s rude guitar and Sclavunos’ rampaging drums. Even the quiet moments sound disturbing, with tambourines rattling, organ droning, and Cave muttering.
The singer’s savage spew is more about id than intellect, suggesting hallucinations teeming with lust and pulp-fiction action scenes. His narrators become feral predators (wolves, the Loch Ness Monster, Mickey Mouse!) haunted by avenging angels, “Miles Davis the black unicorn” and Eastern deities. Typically, the quietest song just may be the most disturbing of all. In “What I Know,” Cave dials down the fiercely vivid imagery for a stark meditation on sex and death that leaves almost everything to the listener’s imagination, accompanied by little more than the crackle of static. Pleasant dreams.
Nick Cave pared down his longtime band, the Bad Seeds, to a lean, mean quartet in 2007 to make the first Grinderman album. It had all the earmarks of a mid-life crisis: A bunch of aging hell-raisers revisiting their chaotic roots in punk-blues. But Cave and his accomplices – Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos – subverted that premise with wicked humor, embracing their fading youth with self-deprecating cackles and gleeful cacophony. Next to the Bad Seeds’ orchestral dynamism, Grinderman sounded like undiluted nastiness, a black comedy of shrieks, howls and leers.
The project was invigorating enough for all involved to inspire a sequel, and “Grinderman 2” (Anti) is in many ways even more outrageous. In contrast to the Bad Seeds, the music is less fussed-over, a collection of studio jams by the quartet that has been pounded into loose shape. The effect is disorienting, the instruments often sounding like they’re throwing tantrums or coughing up fur balls while trying to keep what’s left of the song on course. Casey’s bass is the beast in the room, stomping where it will, hacking a path through the maelstrom of Ellis’ backfiring stringed instruments, Cave’s rude guitar and Sclavunos’ rampaging drums. Even the quiet moments sound disturbing, with tambourines rattling, organ droning, and Cave muttering.
The singer’s savage spew is more about id than intellect, suggesting hallucinations teeming with lust and pulp-fiction action scenes. His narrators become feral predators (wolves, the Loch Ness Monster, Mickey Mouse!) haunted by avenging angels, “Miles Davis the black unicorn” and Eastern deities. Typically, the quietest song just may be the most disturbing of all. In “What I Know,” Cave dials down the fiercely vivid imagery for a stark meditation on sex and death that leaves almost everything to the listener’s imagination, accompanied by little more than the crackle of static. Pleasant dreams.
greg@gregkot.com