EASE DOWN THE ROAD

Grinderman’s self-titled debut album has the rare ability to make spirited gutter punks – both real and costumed – feel okay about their socially shunned lifestyles of perceived slackerdom. Whether you’re broke, horny, sick, desperate or just plain ol’ ticked off at the world, the 11 songs on this Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds side project will make you feel normal. In a way, through it’s street-smart darkness and ripped-raw atmospheres, Grinderman might even make social lowlifes feel, well, happy. Isn’t that how rock n’ roll was originally designed to make us, the nonconforming froth of the world, feel? Not normal, never that … but happy.

For starters, the typical Stooges fan who’s going to fall for Grinderman probably isn’t much of a fan of Cave’s The Birthday Party or any of his expansive Goth-themed solo catalog. While his talent and originality make him both a critical favorite and a cult icon, his brand of sick oddball music has always kept his pale-skinned fanbase at a modest size. Grinderman, on the other hand, will make listeners feel eight feel tall and harder than Lenny Dykstra, rather than five foot whatever and soft as a stack of tattered bath towels. Goth in a different way than Cave’s recent work, Grinderman builds most perceptibly on not just The Birthday Party’s later work, but also on some of Tom Waits’ darker moments, making them into directly accessible and edgy rock n’ roll. It also helps that the men behind the Grinderman mask, a bearded batch of 50-year-old balding rockers, sound as fresh and youthful as they ever have.

How exactly are Cave (vocals, guitar, organ, piano), Warren Ellis (bouzouki, fendocaster, viola, etc.), Martyn Casey (bass, guitar) and Jim Sclavunos (drums) able to pull off 40 minutes of primitive, cool, enriching, youthful rock after years of semi-progressive, overly pretentious Goth/folk? Well, for one, Cave decided to stop sitting at a desk to write his songs. Rather than e-mailing lyrics and tabs to his Bad Seeds before gathering to rehearse, Cave, Ellis, Casey and Sclavunos convened in a practice space, drank some beers and ripped through Cave’s purposefully simple blueprints. The result is not only Cave’s best work in years, but also his most collaborative and air guitar-worthy release to date.

Packaged like a gatefold LP to the scale of a CD, Grinderman starts with the anathematic “Get It On,” full of perfectly fuzzy and crunchy guitars and lip-curling vocals. Next up is Grinderman’s first single, “No Pussy Blues,” a ferocious, hootin’ n’ hollerin’ blues rocker complete with one of the most epic rock n’ roll climaxes since The Queens of the Stone Age released Songs For the Deaf. As far as Grinderman’s lyrical and vocal content go, Cave comes off like a horny, rambunctious, stoned-out rock spirit (again, think Fun House-era Iggy Pop), ready to arm-wrestle Henry Rollins while shooting up with Alice Cooper.

As easy as it is to describe Grinderman as a dirty album that spits rock bullets, it’s actually a quite artful collection of songs, full of inventive twists, turns and sounds; an aspect one would just have to assume is by now built into The Bad Seeds’ DNA. Other highlights include “Go Tell the Women,” “Grinderman,” “Depth Charge Ethel” and the amazing closer, “Love Bomb.” Really though, aside from the subpar “Honey Bee (Let’s Fly to Mars)” and “(I Don’t Need You) To Set Me Free.” Grinderman is solid straight through, offering a varied mix of fast and slow, arty and straight-ahead. That, and it’ll sound good on your skateboard, in your car, at your desk or in the van on the way to play your next gig.

Grinderman’s debut is – similar to Jim Jarmusch’s raw, beatnik-friendly film, Down By Law – a grimy riff of city-slicking art, told from the perspective of a worldly, street-smart poet capable of making words like “pussy” seem commonplace. If you need a soundtrack for your next appearance as the black sheep at whatever family function lies ahead, Grinderman have you covered with their comfortably acute riffs and “kick down the door” spirit. Either way, be sure to pack two air guitars: one to smash and the other to bleed on.