Album of the Week: Grinderman

This isn't necessarily the best album of the week, but it certainly is the most intriguing story of the week...

Depending how you look at it, Nick Cave has either completely snapped (what's up the stache???) or he's taken a refreshing break from the macabre to rock your ass. If you haven't heard about it yet, Grinderman is a new band project lead by Cave featuring many of his Bad Seed cohorts that doesn't sound anything like Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Instead of the usual morose ballads you've come to expect from Cave & Co., Grinderman spits out a heavy dose of gritty, angst-ridden rawk.

As amusing as it is to hear them in a different context, unfortunately in the end it just doesn't really seem to work and Cave ends up sounding surprisingly corny in a majority of the songs. There are some good songs (like the title track), but there seems to be more bad ones and even a couple that are just plain ugly ("No Pussy Blues"?? seriously Nick, WTF?). Grinderman is not a complete loss as I'm sure die hard Cave fans will get a kick out of it, but to everyone else it may be the most baffling album released so far this year.

Download: Grinderman - "Grinderman"