What’s the big deal?
Cave released Grinderman’s self-titled debut last year to great reviews, and this record is its poppy little brother. But this little brother is just as big a pervert, don’t worry. Cave has a way of disguising his sick and realistic sense of humour as catchy pop ditties on this one, catching you off guard and then sucking you in for classic Bad Seeds tunes. Who’s behind it? Nick Launay produced. A constant fixture in the Nick Cave world, he’s also worked with Talking Heads, PIL and most recently the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Is it worth a damn? To paraphrase the album’s “Call Upon The Author”, you’d be a vacuum, a real sucker - not to pick up this fucker. The opening title track is a sing-talker in the vein of the Velvet’s “Sweet Jane”, while “Hold On To Yourself” gives us that dark and sexy classic Cave sound. This is the most accessible disc yet from the budding actor/screenwriter, the stand-out track being the infectiously catchy “More News from Nowhere”, a mellow, Leonard Coen-esque dark serenade. Interesting Cave Fact: His friend Russell Crowe asked him to write a treatment for a proposed Gladiator sequel. The story involved the Gladiator traveling through time and fighting numerous bad guys, fictional and non-fictional. The script was rejected and the project was sadly scrapped.
