Grinderman
I may be very much in love with Mrs. Toad, but if the opportunity to get a quick divorce were to present itself I may consider it, if just so I could run away in the dead of night with this album. The problem is, it’s so primal it would probably make me its bitch and I would be condemned to a life of gimp masks, beatings and sexual subservience. Mind you, one listen to Go Tell the Women and actually that doesn’t sound too ba… no, no, I’ll stop there.
It’s like that though, this album. Sexually charged, brutal, visceral; it reminds me of those vicious old folk tales of rape and torture and pillage. And it’s all delivered in a festering, menacing piledriver of scabrous blues-rock that quite frankly makes me want to subject myself to its nefarious will for ever more.
Really, given how generally poor the major releases have been so far this year, and the absolute dearth of people continuing to produce excellent music into their dotage (well, musically speaking anyway) this is an absolute rocket delivered squarely up the arse of the rest of the industry. Why the fuck aren’t any of the rest of you this good?
It’s not all the explosion of angry guitars that I was expecting though, although it is a hugely guitar-dominated record. Actually, there’s more simmering menace than there are mental wig-outs. Songs like the smouldering Grinderman, Electric Alice and Go Tell the Women are tense, brooding and threatening. But when they do cut loose and go for it you really get your money’s worth, with tracks like the brilliant single No Pussy Blues – probably Nick Cave’s best raging stalker anthem since the towering Loverman (for ’tis his band, don’t you know – explanation here).
Honestly, I’d post half this album if I thought I could get away with it. If you want feral music with huge fucking balls that you are pretty sure would slam you over the desk and shag you hard up the arse if you turned your back on it for a second, then this is your baby.
Grinderman – Go Tell the Women
Grinderman – Honey Bee (Let’s Fly to Mars)
thank you thank you thanl you Mr Toad! have been meaning to have a listen to this for days and have now just gone and bought the damn thing. Sublime!!!! especially as I have just worked out how to play my itunes from my computer through my HUGE speakers…..although my lovely neighbour Seamus might not agree!!!
Paulene
You don’t think I went just a smidgen too far in my review then? Phew!
Mind you, Grinderman played through huge speakers will either make Seamus think you are in league with the devil and probably performing animal sacrifices in your kitchen, or it will forever turn him to the dark side. Mwah-hah-haaaa…!
Which reminds me, I’ve had a couple of bottles of wine and I have huge speakers too…
*prepares to hugely offend the neighbours…*
Paulene, you are a hero. I am now pickled and the music is on really fucking loud. What a splendid evening!
oh feck em all…..if we choose to have huge speakers instead of children might as well use em!! am now playing Radiohead – The Bends at full volume. I will say sorry to the neighbours tomorrow. I won’t mean it though!!
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Very well laid out. This platter is a super monster, laying waste to all that follows in it’s wake. Could you possibly find “Vortex,”? A track that got away.
Vortex? By Grinderman? Really? Well I will do my best, but I can’t promise anything. Will most certainly do my best though.
I have, in the course of this search, just been to Wikipedia and Martyn Casey apparently said of this album: “It wasn’t consciously two fingers to maturity but I remember thinking, all the way through, ‘This isn’t bad for a bunch of old farts.”
Fucking brilliant!
I love the Grinderman album, probably Nicks best ever work, and that really takes some doing.
There’s also their spiffing website…
http://www.grinderman.com/
And i say again, what a bloody brilliant album.
Simon
x
Wow – top site. I’ve updated the link on the post now, so it goes to that one.
Been meaning to say this for a while….I reckon Nick Cave himself would wholeheartedly approve of the approach you’ve taken to the review of his latest work. But I’m not sure if even he has thought of his music being compared to the ‘joys’ of anal rape….
It is indeed a fine bit of work – and I’d love to see it performed live, so here’s hoping there’s some sort of tour at some point.
I listened to ‘The Boatman’s Call’ straight after the latest listen to Grinderman. It would be great to find someone who only knew Nick Cave through the likes of ‘Into My Arms’ and then went out and bought his new work based on the glowing reviews and to be able to watch their reaction as this masterpiece unfurls….
I hope the Grinderman guys release “Vortex” at some point. Maybe it could end up on the next Bad Seeds CD, since it’s an awesome song, and most current style Bad-Seeds-like of the Grinderman tracks.
Well that’s perhaps not the point of the record or the Grinderman name change. I get the impression they specifically wanted to explore something new, unfettered by the history and expectations of the Bad Seeds.
That said, Vortex is a great song, as are a couple of the other ‘lost songs’ from the first cut of the album, so it would be nice to hear an official release at some point. But it can’t be a coincidence that the songs cut from the initial Grinderman track list happen to be the most Seeds-like.
Next Bad Seeds album sounds like a perfect place for it. According to the Beeb, they are looking to commence recording the new one this Summer – excellent, excellent news!
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