#grinderman 2

Grinderman

‘Heathen Child (Andrew Weatherall Bass Mix)’

The quality gap between Nick Cave’s two Grinderman releases is vast. Somehow, the project went from being an output for the Bad Seeds’ brasher, less refined material to (in true Cave fashion) attempting to make its own bold, broadly experimental artistic statements. Grinderman aren’t afraid of odd song structures that lack choruses, the likes of ‘Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man’ and ‘Evil’ doing so and making their mark despite not sounding too different to the band’s debut. Droning numbers like ‘Worm Tamer’ and ‘When My Baby Comes’ demonstrate a more sonically broad Cave that wouldn’t be manifested in his Bad Seeds work until some of Push the Sky Away and Skeleton Tree. G2 represents Cave and his bandmates as restlessly creative, but pedestals the onus of just how mulled-over and professional his main project is. As with the first, this record isn’t for everyone, and isn’t for all Cave fans, yet while as a whole its more divisive such is the diversity that it’ll more than likely hold a track for anyone. It’s also got ‘When My Baby Comes’, which could easily be considered among Cave’s finest tracks this millennium; a dense statement of kingly noise and complete chaos.