Grinderman – Grinderman 2

 

As The Bad Seeds fast approach their 30th year, their music has become naturally more bombastic and grandiose. The Grinderman offshoot was, in some respects, Nick Cave’s partial return to the feral violence of The Birthday Party in light of that stadium-esque pomp. At its best, Grinderman 2 is a magnificent cauldron of wailing raw boogie desert rock and soaring flights of sublime fancy. However, it frequently feels like a collection of Bad Seed cast-offs bordering on the redundant. Cave has always been a better lyricist than a singer, and here his lyrics seem almost lackadaisical and unconsidered. The real star here is Warren Ellis’s brutally virtuosic buzzsawing violin; even sounding like an army of crooning Björks at one point. It’s obvious these guys are having great fun with the material; it’s just hard to see what function Grinderman serves as long as the Bad Seeds are flourishing. [Ali Maloney]