Album Review: Grinderman: Grinderman

The A.V. Club, April 17, 2007 Link

If Nick Cave's last album with The Bad Seeds, Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus, was an opera triumphing on closing night, Grinderman is a smoke break during rehearsal, a place where Nick Cave can just be Nick Cave. (That's "Nick Cave" as in a character who already contains more personas than a loony bin.) It's also supposed to be a place where Cave and three Bad Seeds can write spontaneously, as the typewriter noise at the beginning of "No Pussy Blues" deliberately reminds the audience: Right as the drums kick up, the typewriter dings, and Cave presumably dashes over to the mic with his still-drying lyric sheet in hand.

In spite of the growling green monkey on the cover, Cave isn't satisfied with just being his primal self. Instead, he's at his best when making windy melodrama sound crude, and most trustworthy when he's most artificial. Instead of repainting for Grinderman, he's gotten hip to exposed brick and scraped down in a hurry, leaving a few remnants for good measure. "(I Don't Need You To) Set Me Free" could be a leftover from Abattoir Blues, and "When My Love Comes Down" recalls the slow burners of Let Love In through a sheet of static.

Spontaneous or not, Grinderman forces Cave to summon his basic strengths and little else. It favors the songwriting foundation that connects all of Cave's best albums, and—again, deliberately—downplays the tinkering that kept those albums from sounding alike. The result is a thorough reminder of what's majestic, funny, bizarre, and poetic about Cave. Which means it's probably the most redundant album this frequently repetitive artist will ever make, but life inside the loony bin never grows stale.

A.V. Club Rating: B

Album Review: Ted Leo And The Pharmacists: Living With The Living

The A.V. Club, March 20, 2007 Link

Nobody will ever be caught just picking a Ted Leo song at an open-mic. Leo's songs can't exist without his unflagging, youthful conviction, and unlike many equally good songwriters, Leo can produce that reliably. In other words, it'd be hard for him to put out an unexciting album right now, so excitement alone wouldn't cut it. After a short sound collage, Living With The Living announces itself as another fiercely satisfying Leo record with "The Sons Of Cain," but as on his previous albums, Leo is at his best when he holds off on gratification. Living takes up plenty of room for that, running at a full hour—the longest Leo/Pharmacists album yet, and 20 minutes longer than his last, 2004's Shake The Sheets.

When Leo wants to moralize, he's admirably direct, but he also chooses the most vulnerable moment possible: "Bomb. Repeat. Bomb," more violent than anything on Sheets, comes right after the wistful lull of "A Bottle Of Buckie." Leo's become something of a leader at a time when dissent has become its own form of instant gratification. "Bomb. Repeat. Bomb" turns it back into a challenge—Leo isn't just shunning the bomber pilot who doesn't see or care about his victims, he's trying to level with him, while showing listeners images that they haven't seen either.

Leo and producer Brendan Canty have brightened and polished the scruffy punk that worked so well on Sheets, easing shifts like the one between "Bomb" and the more plaintive "La Costa Brava." They also don't hide the ever-increasing tightness Leo, bassist Dave Lerner, and drummer Chris Wilson have forged on Sheets and Hearts Of Oak and at countless shows. With interruptions like the short "Annunciation Day/Born On Christmas Day" and the reggae bum-out "The Unwanted Things," the album doesn't seem to flow comfortably, probably because Leo isn't interested in comfort. Sure, he still offers sympathy in dark times, but he knows that's nothing without restlessness.

A.V. Club Rating: A