Grinderman
Grinderman 2 Grinderman (Anti-)
Muddy Waters wasn't muddy, but Howlin' Wolf did howl.
Grinderman, the terrorizing blues-rock vehicle of Nick Cave's, howls too - potently and excitingly. The foursome's second album begins with the tone-setting Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man, which isn't Walt Disney - it's a sort of horrific, precautionary fairy tale, what with its business of blood-sucking and a lupine child aflame, running to the elevator.
Everybody knows that fire and elevators don't mix; the signs tell you as much: In case of fire, do not use elevators. But when your hair's on fire, all reason falls by the wayside. And when Cave goes all Howlin' Wolf-like - he bays "Oww-woo" - and when the band steps into its infernal, hallucinogenic Steppenwolf-rock, you will flee by any means available.
"The whole thing with Grinderman is being a way to escape the weight of the Bad Seeds," Cave said recently, commenting on this wild, less-brooding side-project. And so Grinderman 2, recorded in the studio with a live, improvised approach, succeeds on the strength of its escape. Lyrically, Cave is still a storyteller, and sings as if delivering sermons. But the soundtrack is fevered electric-demon blues. Grinderman, the band, is a beast - a pack-hunting beast that sweats acid, spits blood and laughs inappropriately.
Worm Tamer, which haltingly stomps to death the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, delivers a zinger as it marauds: "Well, my baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster/ Two great big humps and then I'm gone." Ho ho!
The eerily calm rape-tale When My Baby Comes starts as off as an off-kilter samba, and then gets weird. What I Know is a reflective, mid-album acoustic remission, but Kitchenette cooks up acid blues as it leeringly updates Wolf's sexually savvy Backdoor Man. Get a load of this: "What's this husband of yours ever given to you?/ Oprah Winfrey on a plasma screen, and a brood of jug-eared buck-toothed imbeciles/ The ugliest kids I've ever seen."
Heathen Child is delirious, with Cave questioning the notion that husbands can protect wives and vice-versa. With a line such as "Someone left the bathtub running!" delivered apocalyptically, it's hard to decide whether Grinderman 2 is fearful or if it's fearsome. I do know that Jack White at least should be wary, because as nuclear-blues side-projects go, Grinderman totally puts the boots to White's The Dead Weather.
Of course, it's not just White who is unsafe; we all are. In the kingdom of fear, the doom-flirting Nick Cave and Grinderman rule.
Grinderman plays Toronto's Phoenix, Nov. 11; Montreal's Metropolis, Nov. 12; and Vancouver's Commodore, Nov. 26.
Other new releases this week
Band of Joy Robert Plant (Rounder)
4 STARS
At first glance, this may seem just another adventure in Americana, with a different band building on the foundation of Plant's 2009 Grammy-winning Raising Sand. Spend some time with it, however, and it's the differences that stand out - the sly, hypnotic grooves, the churchy harmonies and the wicked subtlety of Plant's singing. The production (by Plant and Nashville guitarist Buddy Miller) oozes atmosphere while avoiding the obvious, so even though Angel Dance is awash in swampy guitar tremolo, it's the plinking mandolin that drives the rhythm, just as the funky drums shape Plant's phrasing in the otherwise folky Even This Shall Pass Away. Simply stunning. J.D. Considine
You Are Not Alone Mavis Staples (Anti-)
3.5 STARS
Gospel music is part of the fabric of R&B - why do you think they called it soul singing? - and those threads are particularly strong for Mavis Staples, who grew up singing sacred music with her father and siblings in the Staples Singers. So even though the title tune and production here are by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, the album's sound and feel are totally old-time religion. Staples sings beautifully, of course, and maintains her ability to make the pop fare (by Randy Newman, John Fogerty and Tweedy) sound just as spiritual as the gospel chestnuts (by Alex Bradford, the Rev. Gary Davis, and Staples' father). J.D.C.
False Priest Of Montreal (Polyvinyl)
3 STARS
"When will some people realize, an afterlife is nothing to live for - nothing to die for, nothing to fight for." Nobody dampens a disco shine like a suicide bomber. On its 10th album, Of Montreal, which is to say Kevin Barnes and producer Jon Brion, parties like its 1989 on the first half of a falsetto-voiced album of light-funk. Replacing his laptop with real instruments, Barnes prances like Bowie on I Feel Ya' Strutter and mixes dancey progressive rock with Morricone-styled guitars on Coquet Coquette. There are duets with Solange and, on the DNA ditty Enemy Gene, the freaky phenom Janelle Monáe. Things regress darkly as the album moves on, culminating in the sprawling, eventful, anti-religion screed of You Do Mutilate?, which is not a question but a condemnation. Brad Wheeler
Wilderness Heart Black Mountain (Outside)
2.5 STARS
In the battle of Canadian stoner-rock discs, Wilderness Heart (from Vancouver's Black Mountain) comes in second to Lights from Paradise (from Toronto's Quest for Fire). Black Mountain, led by Stephen McBean (also of Pink Mountaintops), shows a little more in the way of psychedelic folk, beginning with The Hair Song, which has a riverside blues feel. Radiant Hearts glows like the bright side of the moon, but The Space of Your Mind imagines an awkward meeting of Blue Rodeo and Pink Floyd. And while Old Fangs chugs greatly, with a retro Highway Star organ sound and a mood that is at once gloomy and uplifting, other tracks are tired in comparison. B.W.