Nick Cave is an artist known for his lyrical prowess and emotional songwriting – but sometimes don’t you just wish he’d grow some balls and rock the hell out? Well, with Grinderman he does. He REALLY does.

Thing is, Cave knows there is a time and a place for such things so Grinderman is his beloved side-project for all that spare psychedelia and surrealism he’s got just knocking around. That’s right, in case you’re not au fait with Cave’s part-time exploits, he tells the Bad Seeds to grow a forest of hair and join him in creating raucous prog rock for the disenchanted and insane.

Grinderman 2 succeeds 2007’s eponymous debut, differing from it in many ways. This second outing continues the theme of bluesy, crunchy rhythm rawk but builds on it with fuller-sounding production courtesy of Nick Launay (Arcade Fire, PiL, Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Despite also producing Grinderman, Launey manages to coax more erratic, yet accomplished musicianship from Cave and the Seeds; he always boasted that the debut was recorded in only four days but the longer recording period on Grinderman 2 has developed it into a more considered, suspenseful record than its predecessor.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on opener ‘Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man’. It begins with a stringy guitar strum and the eventual introduction of a bass line that builds, builds, builds until Cave teases over and over, “I woke up in the morning/and I thought, "What am I doing here?"" This continues on to second track ‘Worm Tamer’ where Cave spits staccato vocals over a simmering, tribal drumming. Yes, the lyricism is just as lewd (“My baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster/Two big humps and then I’m gone”) and he is still unabashedly a dirty old bugger (as heard on middle-aged, mothersnatcher ‘Kitchenette’) so don’t think that Cave has turned Grinderman into a contemplative, serious prospect. One glance at the controversial bloodbath of a video for ‘Heathen Child’ proves that this band is still completely unashamed to have nonsensical, nightmarish fun.

Grinderman 2 is still very much a dark, lustful, schizophrenic mid-life psychosis. But the stripped down tension is its real accomplishment and the attribute that sets this album apart from its predecessor. - Melissa York

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