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B16 said in Settembre 24th, 2010 at 15:50

Intato che aspetti mastro Gabriele, io e il generale ci prepariamo agli ululati Grinderman… non me ne ero accorto ma Pitchfork gli ha dato un (sacrosanto) 8.1 !!!

Grinderman
Grinderman 2
[Anti-; 2010]
8.1

What is it about dirty old men, anyway? In 2007, Nick Cave gave up the ghost of youth, declaring an out-and-out midlife crisis with Grinderman, a brilliant, crude, stripped-down quartet. Made up of members of his Bad Seeds, the nascent group’s self-titled debut was naked about its grotesqueries, as Cave futzed with a guitar for the first time, wailed about the “No Pussy Blues”, and sucked in his gut with hopes of getting laid.

It was an inspired late-career move for the then 50-year-old, invigorating and recalibrating the piano-affixed, doom-saying troubadour. Critics fell over themselves proclaiming the return of the former Birthday Party frontman’s skuzzy side. A year later you could hear the punk reverberations in 2008’s Bad Seeds album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! But Grinderman, though fierce and often hilarious, weren’t exactly a great band. Young bands– no matter how old– have to learn new tricks, and this one had to find interesting ways to be messy. Grinderman 2 is a sequel of sorts, but mostly an improvement. The band has widened their sound and sexual pursuits, but also poked around at the edges of decrepitude. What does life look like on the other side of crisis?

Well, it’s schizophrenic and sloppy. Those feral urges are still there; consider the album cover’s lupine avatar. But Cave and the band– who typically improvise structure and lyrics– have kept the themes consistent across nine songs. And they’re not terribly different from what interests him on albums with the Bad Seeds: God, Death, and America are gospel. But sexual filialness– Cave seems to be calling himself “Daddy” and yowling at his child-lover a lot here– takes an uncomfortable precedence. “Worm Tamer” and “Heathen Child” are almost comically lascivious. “I stick my fingers in your biscuit jar/ And crush all your gingerbread men,” he moans, aping Howlin’ Wolf on “Kitchenette”, one of the album’s best songs. And later, “What has that husband of yours ever given to you?/ Oprah Winfrey on a plasma screen.” That’s a great line, the sort of insinuating thing that might get Cave into bed with a frustrated housewife, but it’s also miserably desperate, self-deprecating stuff.

Cave has been leading a full life lately, finishing his second novel in 2009, composing scores for John Hillcoat’s films, and writing a few screenplays of his own. But he has rarely been as experimental and unafraid as he is here. The pastoral “Palaces of Montezuma” is a “We Didn’t Start the Fire” for heroin addicts, haunted by visions of Miles Davis, Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and “a custard-colored super-dream of Ali McGraw and Steve McQueen.” It’s unhinged and unerringly beautiful. So often, Cave is wise about the state of it all; he seems to know he’s on the wrong side of things– life, love, fear– but he won’t give up the fight.

Like much of Cave’s work, there is an ominous sense of dread always creeping. But unlike previous work, there’s a speed and intensity to Grinderman 2 unheard before. From the chugging build of “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man” through the psych-haze of “Bellringer Blues”, there are few opportunities to catch your breath. “Evil” even lurches toward death metal. “What I Know” is a rare and tender respite from the fury; it’s a plaintive ballad to precocity, process, and nothing. “Oh I know, yeah I know,” Cave intones, never quite revealing what it is. There isn’t much to the song– a stray, buzzing crackle; a far-off wordless melody; a quietly strummed guitar. It’s just a simple moment in a savage life.

— Sean Fennessey, September 16, 2010

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Generale Lee said in Settembre 24th, 2010 at 17:04

aaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggghhhh!!!

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Luca said in Settembre 24th, 2010 at 17:20

Grande Buzz, fatti sentire quando arrivi nell’anfiteatro: ti devo parlare.

Luca

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buzzandmusic said in Settembre 24th, 2010 at 17:24

non manchero’ ciao!!!!!!!e benvenuto al caffe’ rock stay tuned 🙂

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B16 said in Settembre 24th, 2010 at 22:39

Pink Floyd
The Wall
[Columbia; 1979]

As the individual writers’ lists at the end of this feature will show, I consider Pink Floyd’s The Wall the best album of the 1970s. I’ll concede that the album enjoys an unfair temporal advantage, having been released at the very end of a decade many were eager to put past them, but I’d also argue that Pink Floyd ceased to be aware of anything going on outside the studio sometime in 1975. At once the most ambitious and indulgent record of its day, The Wall is opera, heavy metal, folk, and disco; it is a worthy update of the White Album , an instant milestone in rock ‘n’ roll. It is her prodigal son.

Rather than focus, Roger Waters explores every aspect of his anxiety and depression, orphaned first by war, next by schizophrenia, and finally by the world he was forced to take on in Syd Barrett’s stead. He lashes out most vocally at Britain’s by-then comical institutionalism, and the crippling alienation it infected its children with– as in the smash hit “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2”– but he’s also clearly jealous of youth, and not above condescension during the salacious “Run Like Hell” and “Young Lust”. Weaving back and forth between childhood nostalgia, anti-rock rage, and the paralyzing effects of stardom, The Wall is a man against himself, a 90-minute tantrum revealing terrifying depths of misery (“Goodbye Cruel World”), regret (“Mother”, “One of My Turns”) and contempt, prefaced perfectly by the monumental “In the Flesh?”. –Chris Ott / Pitchfork.com

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