Customer Reviews

Grinderman

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This import contains no extras for the additional cost, but DO BUY THE ALBUM!
Do you remember when Jesus and Mary Chain released their first album? When NIN released Downward Spiral? When you first heard From Her to Eternity?
This album is better than that.
Being a Nick Cave fan for years, I'm totally in shock and awe over how GREAT this album is. Sometimes musically reminiscent of Velvet Underground and original Stooges, with post industrial noise, and Nick Cave's dramatic poetic vocals, Grinderman creates a sound here that is intensely original and just mercilessly rocks.
Grinderman is the best album I'm going to hear this year.
It's just incredible that after all these years; Nick Cave had this album in him. It just rocks. If you can listen to Love Bomb without getting goose bumps, you're just not human.
If I have one criticism it's that I miss Blixa.
I never thought I'd hear music as cool as this created in 2007.
Play it loud.

It's fascinating to hear a band address themes of aging and sexual longing in a youth-obsessed culture, in terms of the withering knowledge that sexual desire does not decrease as one reaches mid-life and beyond. The ability to fulfill that desire, at will, is another thing entirely.

The resulting, bewildered frustration is brilliantly captured in the Grinderman sound: it's the noise of longing, of sorrow, of powerlessness, of an animal shrieking for release from a cage with no gate. It's also about finding humor, passion, and self-effacing acceptance of all that life has to offer - of refusing to be crushed under the gravity of encroaching age and jaded experience. That would be too predictable.

To put this all in context --

In a recent interview with Salon.com (April 12, 2007), Nick Cave said that, as one gets older, one becomes more invisible, and therefore, more powerless, to impact the world. On some level, he was observing that the inevitability of social and physical death are demons we must confront as we turn the corner on our 40s and smack into the hard brick wall of 50. On the other side of that wall is liberation, i.e., the freedom to re-invent onself and to remake the rules of the game. To please oneself.

That's the lesson to be learned from Nick Cave and the Grinderman songs.

Give this record a serious listen. Please don't try and compare it to The Birthday Party sound. This music is immediate and unique. It is Nick Cave, as he is, now. It is meant for all of us, still-rocking, still-lusting, still wildly alive, `invisibles' -- as we are, now.

This product is listed as "Limited Edition Special Packaging" at a cost of $30.99. It's nothing but an ordinary CD in a plastic jewel case with a "Made In Hong Kong" sticker on the back. It's the import version. There's nothing "special" about the packaging. Save your money and get the domestic version for $14.

The album itself is awesome by the way. Nick Cave continues to make fantastic albums. Even though I feel ripped-off by Amazon's inaccurate advertising I must say this album is totally worth having. This is raw and noisy. It's removed from the introspective albums that Nick Cave has produced with the Bad Seeds recently but is better conceived than any Birthday Party record ever was. It's not The Bad Seeds. It's not The Birthday Party. It's GRINDERMAN!

To be fair, I asked Amazon to refund the price difference between this misleading product and the domestic version, the difference being about $17.. They agreed and I got my refund in no time. Thanks Amazon, great customer service.

First let me say that the music is fantastic. The first two of three singles are mean and filthy, bluesy rock tunes, kind of similar to The Birthday Party but not nearly as angry and post-punk. This is the modern version.

It's challenging to the ear at first because it is so different from anything else you might hear, but great albums are often like that. You expect them to sound a certain way because that is what you have been accustomed to hearing from an artist. You'd have to go at least back to, "Murder Ballads", which is absolutely TREMENDOUS by the way, or all the way back to "From Her To Eternity" and "The First Born Is Dead", both of which are GENIUS good, to hear something similar to Grinderman, but of course it is not with The Bad Seeds, so it doesn't sound as polished.

These are tracks that they threw together over a weekend in a studio, I believe, and then decided to clean them up A BIT and release them. Why not right, all the faithful will buy it and they will make a few bucks. BUT, it is worth buying because there is nothing else like it. DON'T expect it to be Nick Cave and TBS because it's Grinderman. It's different. It's NOT all grit and grim, however, there are a bunch of quieter, ballad type tunes as well. They just used the tough ones to spark interest. 4 stars!

Now, about AMAZON. This was listed as Limited Edition with Special packaging, which I just expected to be a cardboard jacket, but what arrived was not just the wrong CD, it wasn't the domestic MUTE release or the UK MUTE release, it was a pressing that was MADE IN CHINA. I pre-ordered the "Special Edition" as soon as it was available to pre-order and waited about six weeks to get a CD from China. It took FOUR phone calls, which added up to many HOURS be on hold and talking, and SIX emails, but I finally did get a full refund and for some reason a second copy of the same record. What I found especially maddening about getting the refund is that the people on the other end of the line are not music collectors. They don't know what special packaging is, the warehouse did not pay attention to the fact that they were not sending out CDs in special packaging, which is bush league, and none of the four people I spoke with for hours on the phone knew what a bootleg CD from China was.

I know it's a little late for me to speak of this problem because they eventually figured out that they were stiffing their customers and issued refunds. They should have thrown in at least the real domestic copy or even the import, which is what we were ordering because come on, this is AMAZON. An enormous international corporation that takes in GOD knows how much revenue a quarter and satisfying a few hundred people is nothing to them. Keep in mind, this was LIMITED EDITION, so they couldn't have sold that many. They didn't even sell out. They did in England, but not in the US. OK, that's enough bashing. Amazon is GREAT 99% of the time, but they really dropped the ball on this one and it was inexcusable.

Boy, that felt good!

BUY THE GRINDERMAN CD!

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.

This record is one triumphant release. Grinderman transports the listener to a sparse landscape, dust blowing in the street, sand in your teeth, and a drunkenness bubbling over and out of your corrupted and decaying soul. Anger and rage. You can smell the smoke as this monster burns you up and melts your face. Nick Cave plays the guitar with so much intensity that my nose began to bleed. Punched drunk in the kisser, lurching and boiling at the seams. The bass and drums entangle you, dragging you to the depths of this torrid, boozy affair. Grinderman is a night out on the town, that moment you stare deep into your own soul and face the demons within. A bender from hell with friends in the night, only to wake and have to face that maddening reality - life is pain. Grinderman is here to remind us that we all grow old, and in the end our mispent youth, hallowed and raw is a fleeting moment. To linger is to live in the hell of vanity forever.

Nick Cave is in an unfortunate position; his past accomplishments were so great that anything he does now that isn't stellar is a letdown. His work with The Birthday Party is essential, and his catalogue with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds is monumental. So what happens when Cave starts a "new" band like Grinderman? He risks disappointment.

Grinderman is not a far step from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Which, considering the personnel, is not surprising. Each member of Grinderman has also worked as a Bad Seed and some of these tracks that appear on this self-titled debut could easily be reworked for the next Bad Seeds release. "I Don't Need You (To Set Me Free)" and "Man in the Moon", for example, both unfold in a shape and style similar to past Bad Seed songs.

Still, in spite of the shared elements, Grinderman is somewhat distinct from the group's other band. It is rougher, it is more disheveled, and it is less compromising. The guitar playing, or rather, the lack of guitar playing is particularly messy. Nick Cave plays the instrument himself and he is far from a virtuoso. Every pluck reinforces this. His playing is awkward and clumsy. And yet, his crude fingers also give this band added personality.

Take "No Pussy Blues", the album's first single, for instance. It begins with a driving bassline and steady, banging beats and then erupts with a spill of loud, confrontational guitar. The gawky instrumentation works well. When Cave starts to sing, his charismatic voice carries the track even further. "No Pussy Blues" is peppered with his rugged sarcasm. Lyrically, the song deals with failed sexual advances and the resulting frustrations. "I sent her every type of flower / I played her a guitar by the hour / I patted her revolting little Chihuahua / But still she just didn't want to". Every syllable is delivered with a tongue-in-cheek dark humor and smirking wry attitude.

"No Pussy Blues" is fast. It is propelled by its quick tempo, and other tracks follow a similar path. The raw excellence of "Get It On", the driving fun of "Depth Charge Ethel", the bending wines of "Honey Bee (Let's Fly to Mars)", and rocking simplicity of "Love Bomb" all tumble forward on a throbbing bass and smacking rhythm.

Not every track relies on speed, however. "Electric Alice", which is one of the album's highlights, squirms along Warren Ellis's distorted violin strings. Voice and organ alternate their places at the song's forefront while bass and drums circle and contain the music. The song wanders and meanders blindly through psychedelic ambience.

Grinderman revisits the gritty attitude that Cave had in the 1980s, but misses the elegance. The music of Grinderman is often muddied and at least half of their songs shimmy along a sloppy path. Like an oil stain on the floor of a dirty garage, Grinderman is thick, dark, and ugly.

A fun and inspired work from Nick that is now one of my all time favorites. This guy just gets sharper with age, and the music is wonderfully simple.

Nick Cave are one of the few artist that still can suprise with an orginally production. Grindermen are a Nick Cave album still not cos of sublim production and sound that are new to him. If you like Nick Cave you like this album. The melodies and approach to the music are quit similar to The murder ballad album wich in my opinion is one of Cave:s best. Its nice to hear that someone still cares for orginallity and god lyrics.

Although I truly believe "Go Tell the Women" and "Man in the Moon" should have been left out of the album since they don't seem to fit with the rest of the songs, I can't help loving this album. Grinderman is Mr.Cave and friends' way of saying "This is how it's done" to all those fake-punk-goth-whiners like Simple Plan, Panic at the Disco, etc. You gotta be gentle and smart as hell to get down and dirty like this. "Get it on", "No Pussy Blues", "Depth Charged Ethel", and "Love Bomb" are instant classics, while the bass line of "Electric Alice" will take you back to the wild, wild days of the Birthday Party. In fact, Tracy Pew comes back to life on that one. Long live Nick and his Cavemen!