Grinderman

Grinderman – Grinderman
If rock & roll is to be effective (i.e. disruptive to the elderly & cultural elite), it should feed off the same dense emotion that erupts wildly in puberty, with no concern for billboard status or myspace listens. Nick Cave shoved it in our faces with his 80’s Australian outfit Birthday Party, a noisy aggressive free-form collaboration whose inhospitable sound even today remains modern. 25 plus years later, Cave returns to this twisted explosion of American blues and avant punk, with a fraction of his Bad Seeds (Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos) keeping time. Luckily he’s frustration has never abated, as in the sexual devoid “No Pussy Blues”, and neither has he’s blistering guitar that slashes all over “Depth Charge Ethel.” This is a return to the punch, though a couple harrow hell dirges remain (“Man In The Moon”) to satisfy the moody Bad Seed fan. Defiantly, Cave enters fifty years with irascible and volcanic form.