Artist: Grinderman
Label: Mute Records
Release: 2007
A name that perfectly sums up the band’s sound! Grinderman literally grind, even though the band is made up of the very core of The Bad Seeds, better known as Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. And Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds always knew how to grind, it’s just that in recent years they gave priority to some other, somewhat calmer musical expressions. But only to a certain extent: on Nocturama they served up “Dead Man In My Bed” and “Babe, I’m On Fire”, and on the double album The Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus they came with “Get Ready For Love” and “Hiding All Away”, proving they definitely haven’t forgotten the reputation that followed them and still clings to them. Well, the Grinderman album actually awakens even older feelings, or in this case, better said, nerves. It stirs up the energy of The Birthday Party, which wasn’t exactly something you’d expect from Nick Cave, but it’s very welcome all the same. Plenty of people might even say, “yeah, finally!”
And truly, this is music that wasn’t born in an office, the way all of Nick Cave’s music has been made lately. No, this is music that came out of a direct, interactive back-and-forth between four musicians who, by their own account, spent too much time together (in rehearsals). On too little sleep! As we know, strange things can start happening when you’re short on sleep… And one of those strange things is probably the fact that Cave no longer plays piano but guitar, which opened up completely new dimensions for the band and, at the same time, a new sharpness of expression. And the Grinderman album is, basically, almost entirely truly sharp and merciless. A kind of manliness is present up front the whole way through, the kind of manliness that bursts out after a long absence of the female sex. And in the song “Go Tell The Women” we learn that the men decided, completely voluntarily, to walk away from their women, because “all we wanted was a little consensual rape in the afternoon and a bit more in the evening”. Then there’s “No Pussy Blues”, and what could be more direct? It’s a classic blues confession and the eternal fascination with “getting some”, or in this case, “not getting any”. A thing as old as time. Cave usually doesn’t bother much with trendier, more modern themes anyway. So here you’ve got plenty of the same “eternal” themes that keep popping up in Cave’s lyrics again and again, only God has stepped off the scene a bit. Which makes sense, since most of this is about things that usually exclude God or demand penance later on, and there’s no sign of that here.
Already in the opening track, “Get It On”, Grinderman deal with some things, maybe fears and uneasy feelings that shaped the past but certainly not the present anymore. “I got to get on up, to get down and start all over again. Head on down to the basement and shout. Kick those white mice and black dogs out. Kick those white mice and baboons out. Kick those baboons and other motherfuckers out. And get it on!”. Later, in the song “Depth Charge Ethel”, Cave conjures up the memory of a former acquaintance, Ethel, who was a drug addict and a prostitute and at the same time one of the happiest people around. In the calmest track, “Man In The Moon”, we face more ordinary things (for Cave), like abandonment and loss. And the metaphor of the lost astronaut is more than excellent here. Perhaps the most special song of the whole bunch is “Electric Alice”, which is supposedly a sort of tribute to the recently deceased, extremely creative and one-of-a-kind musician Alice Coltrane. As Cave put it, the song is a kind of “hallucination or dream” that, with its repetitive musical pattern and extremely electric tension, could go on forever.
The fear that the traditionally epic lyrics Cave masterfully crafts have been lost may be present, but it’s totally unnecessary and uncalled for, because what steps to the front here is a concept that’s openly different from the one Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds present. And the outpouring of that huge amount of raw, primal energy has simply won out over moral confession, tenderness and the pain we’re otherwise used to. Without a doubt, Grinderman and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are the same photograph, only Grinderman are its negative.
Lineup
Nick Cave – Vocals, electric guitar, electric organ, piano
Warren Ellis – Electric bouzouki, Fendocastor, viola, violin, acoustic guitar, Hohner guitaret, backing vocals
Martyn Casey – Bass guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Jim Sclavunos – Drums, percussion, backing vocals
Production
Nick Launay and Grinderman
Track list
01. Get It On
02. No Pussy Blues
03. Electric Alice
04. Grinderman
05. Depth Charge Ethel
06. Go Tell The Women
07. (I Don’t Need You To) Set Me Free
08. Honey Bee (Let’s Fly To Mars)
09. Man In The Moon
10. When My Love Comes Down
11. Love Bomb
Album length: 40:03
