Grinderman - Grinderman
|
List Price: Our Price: $10.92 You Save: $6.06 (36%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.44 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Grinderman
Free Music Review: Savage.
Hit: 4 Stars
Grinderman's self-titled debut album has the rare ability to make spirited gutter punks - both real and fake - feel okay about their socially shunned lifestyles of perceived slackerdom. Whether you're broke, horny, sick, desperate or just plain ol' pissed off at the world, the eleven songs on this Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' side project will make you feel normal. In a way, through it's street smart darkness and rip raw atmospheres, Grinderman might even make social lowlifes feel, well, happy. Isn't that how rock n' roll was originally designed to make us, the nonconforming froth of the world, feel?
For starters, the typical Stooges fan that's going to fall for Grinderman probably isn't much of a fan of The Birthday Party or any of Cave's expansive Goth-themed catalog. While his talent and originality make him both a critical favorite and a cult icon, his brand of sick oddball music has always kept his pale-skinned fanbase at a modest size. Grinderman, on the other hand, is poised to make listeners feel eight feel tall and as hard as Lenny Dykstra, rather than five foot whatever and soft as a stack of tattered bath towels. Goth in a different way than Cave's recent work, Grinderman builds most perceptibly on not just The Birthday Party's later work, but also on some of Tom Waits' darker moments, making them into directly accessible and edgy rock n' roll. It also helps that Grinderman, a group of 50-year-old balding rockers, sound as fresh and youthful as anyone you've ever heard.
How exactly are Cave (vocals, guitar, organ, piano), Warren Ellis (bouzouki, fendocaster, viola, etc.), Martyn Casey (bass, guitar) and Jim Sclavunos (drums) able to pull off 40 minutes of primitive, cool, enriching, youthful rock after years of semi-progressive, overly-pretentious Goth/folk? Well, for one, Cave decided to stop sitting at a desk to write his songs. Rather than e-mailing lyrics and tabs to his Bad Seeds before gathering to rehearse, Cave, Ellis, Casey and Sclavunos convened in a practice space, drank some beers and ripped through Cave's purposefully simple blueprints. The result is not only Cave's best work in years, but also his most collaborative and air guitar-worthy release to date.
Packaged like a gatefold LP to the scale of a CD, Grinderman starts with the anathematic "Get It On," full of perfectly fuzzy and crunchy guitars and lip-curling vocals. Next up is Grinderman's first single, "No Pu**y Blues," a ferocious, hootin' and hollerin' blues rocker complete with one of the most epic rock n' roll climaxes since The Queens of the Stone Age released Songs For the Deaf. As far as Grinderman's lyrical and vocal content go, Cave comes off like a horny, rambunctious, stoned-out rock spirit (again, think Raw Power-era Iggy Pop), ready to arm-wrestle Henry Rollins while shooting up with Alice Cooper.
As easy as it is to describe Grinderman as a dirty album that spits rock bullets, it's actually a quite artful collection of songs, full of inventive twists, turns and sounds. Other highlights include "Go Tell the Women," "Grinderman," "Depth Charge Ethel" and the amazing closer, "Love Bomb." Really though, aside from the sub par "Honey Bee (Let's Fly to Mars)" and "(I Don`t Need You) To Set Me Free," Grinderman is solid straight through, offering a varied mix of fast and slow, arty and straight-ahead.
Grinderman is - similar to Jim Jarmusch's raw beatnik-friendly film, Down By Law - a grimy riff of city-slicking art, told from the perspective of a worldly, street-smart poet capable of making words like "pussy" seem commonplace. If you need a soundtrack for your next appearance as the black sheep at whatever family function lies ahead, Grinderman have you covered with their comfortably acute riffs. Either way, be sure to pack your air guitar. (Greg Locke)
Free Music Review: An Entertaining Departure
Hit: 4 Stars
Knowing well the music of Nick Cave, when I saw the lewdly postured monkey on the cover of Grinderman, I knew I was in for an entertaining departure from his recent musical path. I had heard all the hype that preceded its release, but when I first heard it, it sounded very different from what I was led to expect.
I agree with the reviewer who said that one must listen many times to any album by Nick Cave before making a decision on its quality. His talent is so deep, and his writing often so complex, that his work rarely reveals itself fully on first listen. Much of the music press ballyhooed Grinderman as a return to the days of the Birthday Party. The song No Pussy Blues was widely touted as one of Cave's greatest. I think the press was wrong on both counts.
First of all, while Grinderman is raw and primal, it is hardly a return to the unstructured sound of the Birthday Party. Grinderman may be rough, but it is definitely not the sound of a bunch of musicians trying to establish their niche. Its the sound of a bunch of seasoned musicians having a blast! As for No Pussy Blues, I think it is one of the weaker songs on the CD even though the title may have been a draw for some. Cave seemed to be really stretching to make the lyrics fit, but in the end it sounds so desperate and unromantic that there's no wonder that he's got the "no pussy blues".
There are some great songs here as well. I like Electric Alice; Depth Charge Ethel with its sound sometimes evocative of Deep Purple's Machine Head days; (I Don't Need You To) Set Me Free; When My Love Comes Down; and what I think is the album's best song, the hard-driving Love Bomb.
Because Cave has made so many albums superior to this, I can't possibly tag Grinderman with five stars. But it still is worth owning if you are a fan of Nick Cave on any level or you just like your music raw and rowdy. I'll certainly be playing it whenever the mood so demands.
Free Music Review: Badder Seeds
Hit: 4 Stars
Grinderman is a garage scum band headed by Nick Cave and includes some of the Bad Seeds. It doesn't sound too different from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds except that it is not as gloomy, it is rockier, it is more experimental and extreme and weirder than Nick's work with the Bad Seeds, which takes itself pretty seriously.
"Get it on" is a great fuzzy buzzy grunge number full of words like "stratocaster" and "pornographic crown." Good fun, good sounds, very original. Stuff like "No Pussy Blues" may be edgy, but at its heart it's still just a song about a guy who can't get laid. Great guitar squeal, though. "Electric Alice" is very Indian and droney. The self-titles song on the self-titled album is a strange mellow tune that has lots of guitar freakout, seemingly played by Nick Cave himself (although it may just as well be Warren Ellis). "I Don't Need You (To Set Me Free)" is a pretty normal-sounding song, and "Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)" is demented weirdness with Nick buzzing like as... bee. A song like "Man in the Moon" sounds like it could have been on "No More Shall We Part."
Grinderman now makes an interesting diversion for Nick Cave - in the past few years he's begun releasing toned down soundtracks such as "The Proposition" and "The Assassination of Billy The Kid By The Coward...", his regular Bad Seeds stuff, and now Grinderman. While there's some overlap, each is a different field - soundtracks are mellow, the Bad Seeds are intense, and Grinderman is from Mars.
Free Music Review: Worth the purchase for three classic songs
Hit: 4 Stars
I have been torn over whether to rate this album with 3 or 4 stars. I have ultimately given it 4 stars because although there are a good number of forgettable tracks, there are three that are so good that they elevate the record somewhat beyond average.
The three tracks in question are "Get It On", "No Pussy Blues" and "Go Tell The Women". These are great songs and nothing else on the album reaches such heights.
There are also a good number of filler tracks. The "Grinderman" title track is a pointless, repetetive dog turd of a song. "When My Love Comes Down", "Honey Bee..." and "Love Bomb" are all rather unremarkable and forgettable.
The remaining songs are pretty strong and all in all this is a good album that I would certainly recommend. There is enough good stuff to overshadow the filer.
Free Music Review: Cave on the Rocks
Hit: 4 Stars
As with most of Nick Cave's work repeat listenings are needed before you can make a judgement. Really miss the lyric sheet you find with Bad Seed albums. Grinderman is rougher around the edges. Cave is on guitar for the first time and gets a little repetative but a more rock sound sans piano is a welcome change of pace. No Pussy Blues was funny at first but got old after a while. My current favorites include Electric Alice, Depth Charge Ethel, I Don't Need You, Man in the Moon and When Love Comes Down. Go Tell The Women and Honey Bee are fun with typical Nick Cave dark humor.
Not his greatest work but a good swing into the middle aged rocker side of Nick Cave.