Grinderman
2007

It's nice that Nick Cave feels kinder and gentler, it'll help him stay sane and live longer, but I miss that old manic intensity. The intensity that made him bark like a dog on Birthday Party's title song, the intensity that was presented in its most polished form on an album full of Murder Ballads, and then put away in a shelf with old bones, empty cognac bottles, tattered Bibles and discarded French letters, never to be dusted out again.

Only, never is an excessively long time, and Old Nick couldn't stay domesticated for too long. Nocturama already shows signs of a certain tension between the old, raving Cave and the new, croony-gloomy one. The struggle for ascendancy reached its peak on the twin CDs of Abbatoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus and the Bad Son seems to have gained ascendance for the moment . At least for the purposes of the current record, the debut from Nick Cave's side project - a band consisting of a stripped-down version of the Bad Seeds, without long-term collaborator Mick Harvey, and with the CaveMan on guitars.

It's a far more organic and spontaneous sound than the structured, premeditated writing that has marked recent (and probably future) Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds records. Still, it isn't as if it couldn't have been released as a Bad Seeds album - for all that the first two tracks, 'Get It On' and 'No Pussy Blues', and the album closer, 'Love Bomb' brim with noisy guitar, pounding rhythm and frantic vocals with lyrics about sex, and rock n' roll, and sex and what have you (and sex) (and rock n' roll), the album soon moves on to more mid-paced, melodic material. The title track is a stripped-down, rootsy affair that wouldn't have been out of place in classic Bad Seeds albums like 'Tender Prey' or 'The Good Son'. '(I Don't Need You) To Set Me Free' could have found a place on 'Let Love In' it certainly has a rhythmic imperative that hasn't been seen a lot since then. 'Man In The Moon' might as well have fit on any album since 'The Boatman's Call'.

But I think these are only superficial similarities. There really is a raw, personal feel running through these songs - a return to a more confessional, cathartic statement. I felt that even the best albums of his recent phase missed a certain darkness and directness, and this album sees all those elments back in place. Sure, it's an older, wryer, less impatient Cave at work here, but one who is again on the edge, as a songwriter, reaching deep into his favourite music of the distant past and the the darkest places in his blackened heart to create songs like the latter-day folk masterpiece, 'Go Tell The Women'.

There are two versions of this album. A leaked version, and an official one. The leaked version has three rather good songs - 'Decoration Day', 'Rise' and especially 'Vortex' that are missing from the final release. Not that the replacement songs, 'Depth Charge Ethel' and 'When My Love Comes Down' are any weaker, but I wonder what happened. Perhaps the idea was to create a more focussed set, with as few slower, more ballady songs that could instead be saved for the next Bad Seeds album.

The Eiderdown-Stuffing Botomline: Cave strips it down and notches it up to deliver the album that I've been hoping he would for a while, now. He's back on the edge, but he's done his thing, he has evolved - he just might be invincible again!

Jeff Martin - Exile And The Kingdom
2006

Rating - 6/C

I was a huge fan of Jeff Martin's erstwhile band, The Tea Party. Their first three albums (4, if you count the independant label debut) were among the most unusual and exciting things to come out in the 90s - a private genre composed of equal parts classic rock swagger, 80s new wave/goth romanticism and darkness, and eastern musical influences and instruments. Their 3rd major label album, Transmission added trendy electronic/industrial elements to this mix, but did so in a manner that conveyed musical growth and experimentation, even if some of the songwriting on the album was only passable. Since then, they rapidly fell off their pedestal, releasing perfectly amiable but stale albums that employed modern rock radio-friendly arrangements and hooks in a bid at replicating their first crossover hit, 'Heaven's Coming Down', and trotted out eastern touches and progressive flourishes in what increasingly seemed like sheepish sops to long-term fans.

Now The Tea Party have folded, victims of personality conflicts, and mainman Jeff Martin has a solo album out that he claimed would tap into the original Tea Party vibe, the vibe that made albums like Splendor Solis and The Edges Of Twilight so alluring and exciting.

He shouldn't have raised the bar so high.

Exile And The Kingdom plays a lot like a latter-day Tea Party album, only more acoustic and freed from the constituency-appeasing touches of the band's last few albums. Everything's just more stripped-down, largely acoustic and supposedly more intimate.

'Daystar' and 'Stay Inside Of Me' are trademark Jeff Martin romantic anthems (the later having a really egregious bit where Martin goes 'oh woo-woo-woo' in an uncharecteristic and cheesy falsetto), while 'The Kingdom' is the patented tortured-sensitive-soul schtick, only more ebullient and positive in tone, which isn't necessarily a plus. The gospelish backing chorus vocals give the song an excessive sheen and smoothness.'Black Snake Blues' tries to recultivate his earlier blues interests, but, while it isn't a '3 cent New Orleans blues song' as my friend Prem would probably put it, it comes across as rather studied and contrived, trying too hard. 'Lament' has some of the heaviness missing elsewhere, and is a decent enough song, if not especially fresh or memorable. The other heavyish song here, 'World Is Calling', supposedly a jibe at GW Bush is harder-edged, but it seems a trifle over-obvious. It's got some nice riffs though, the heaviest on the whole album. 'Good Times Song' is actually a bit of a breath of fresh air - a lively, folksy tune that is fairly different in tone from Martin's previous work, but it's also kinda minor. As is this whole album, really.

The Eiderdown-Stuffing Bottomline: Jeff Martin hasn't forever betrayed himself with this album - it sticks close to the Tea Party blueprint, and the songwriting and performances here are all of a uniform level of healthy competence. But that's it- not only is there no fresh ground being charted, the lyrical content is positively stale when it's not cloyingly positive and the songs all sound like poor cousins of better, earlier material. It isn't self-derivative in the literal sense of ripping off past compositions, but it's nothing new or exciting, just music that must have occured to Martin very comfortably and easily. If you like The Tea Party, as I do, this will either be a pleasant but forgettable addition to your collection, or one more nail in the coffin. I leave the decision to you, and promise not to call you a fool either way. Really.

David Gilmour - 'On An Island'
2006

Rating - 6/C

This is probably all for the best. On the last two Pink Floyd albums (with any luck, the last ever), Gilmour came across as a little desperate. A good singer and guitar player, but not the most creative or brilliant songwriter around, he now had to take on the lion's share of writing and composing albums to be released under the name of one of the most legendarily pompous, meaningful and exploratory bands. To be fair, he chose this path - hence that legendary law suit where he, Wright and Mason won the rights to the Floyd name. In any case, Gilmour was only intermittently up to the task, often sounding like he was unconsciously parodying his own band on Momentary Lapse Of Reason, and calling in an army of song-doctors to make Division Bell more unified and musically even, if rather tending to buckle under its own weight.

It was an uncomfortable act, and one that not only took some of the shine off the Floyd legacy but also obscured Gilmour's real talents in favour of turning out Dark Side-derived arena-oriented product. These real talents, in my considered and very valuable opinion are:

-He plays the guitar pretty well and has a good ear for creating pleasing musical arrangements in general

-He's got a very good singing voice

-He's a real pro who is able to ensure a high degree of musical class and studio polish on whatever he does

All of which are sterling virtues, but weren't the values on which Pink Floyd were built. It's a lot better for everyone concerned that Floyd appears to be on permanent hiatus and Gilmour can make his music without having to try very hard to make it sound like PF product.

Having said that, this album isn't a huge diversion from the Floyd sound - it's just more stripped-down and varied, with most of the songs going for a sort of personal, mellow vibe rather than sifting through the remains of Waters' megalomania and neuroses (the Barrett vibe is of course long gone). 'This Heaven' and 'Smile' are probably the two least Floydian tracks here. The former is an engaging shuffle with jaunty acoustic lines and Gilmour in fine voice singing about his perfect little secular heaven on earth (the man's a celeb atheist, of course, remember the Douglas Adams connection). 'Smile' weaves acoustic and slide guitars to create a pretty little pop tune that's romantic in the essentially domestic and cozy vein that dominates much of this album.

The opening intro, 'Castellorizon', tries to channel some of that psych-pomp, meandering around in a sound collage haze until, with a minute to go, Gilmour launches into one of his trademark arena-ready solos. It's followed by 'On An Island', which uses Floydian approaches but is basically a warm, nostalgic and comfortable sort of song. Messieurs David Crosby and Graham Nash provide harmonies here, but are somewhat overwhelmed by the huge production. 'Take A Breath' tries for an edgier sound, with slightly uneasy chords, but it sounds like an outtake from Momentary Lapse Of Reason, not the happiest association to conjure up. There's more arena-oriented guitar heroics as well, but Gilmour has never been very convincing when he tries to just rock out. Those trademark solos can be a bit of a liability as well because they often simply conjure up memories of some of the worst excesses of late-career Floyd, in studio and live. Still, he never hits a bum note.

There's a couple of instrumentals too. Neither is a tour de force. 'Red Sky At Night' shows that Gilmour has been taking sax lessons, but it isn't all that compelling, more of a vanity piece if you ask me. 'Then I Close My Eyes' on the other hand is fresh and pretty with banjos and things being used.

Before long though, that mellow, lush and easy-going feel starts to dwindle into boredom. 'Pocketful Of Stones' moves between very ballady piano-dominated verses and all manner of orchestration, but by this point I for one felt too sedated to really stand up and notice. An earlier track on the album, 'The Blue' also tends to drift away in a similar ambient haze. The album closer, 'Where We Begin', is more intimate, mid-tempo mellow melody and calmness.

The Eiderdown-Stuffing Bottomline: Calmness. That's the keynote of this album. What we have here is the sound of a calm, content elderly gent crafting some mellow tunes with a few friends. The fact that he used to be a vital part of a legendary band shouldn't obscure the fact that is just a very personal, mellow, somewhat solipsistic album by a well-settled old guy. He sings beautifully, plays his guitar rather well, barely overstays his welcome and fails to really rock the boat. Play back-to-back with Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music for full effect.

Paul Simon - 'Surprise'
2006

Rating: 8/B

What's this, Paul Simon sings and plays and Brian Eno provides 'sonic landscapes'? Oo er. Unsure what to expect, I ripped the plastic shrink-wrap off my brand new copy of 'Surprise', slid it into my CD player, pressed play and...


...was assaulted by the sounds of a distorted guitar banging out the opening chords to the album's first song, 'How Can You Live In The Northwest'. Oh boy, I thought to myself, utterly bemused, Eno's turned Simon into Townshend! Well, no, not really, at all. Despite the distortion imposed on Simon's guitars on this song, he's still playing the crystalline, lightly melodic poppy guitar lines, previously seen in excellent juxtaposition against the groovy inputs of South African and South American musicians on his late-80s world music-type albums, and now ensconced in electronic guru and producer of immense repute Brian Eno's layers of effects, loops, programs and whatnot.

This does lead to some completely new textures - the distortion on the opening track, the lo-fi funk of 'Outrageous'(where Simon himself is unusually sardonic), a song co-written by Simon and Eno and the free-form excursions of 'Everything About It Is A Love Song' and so on. Perhaps it's Eno's presence, too, that has freed Simon to work with unusual, non-traditional song structures. Other songs are less unexpected - 'Beautiful' is fairly standard, apart from the falsetto in which Simon sings the title, conjuring uncomfortable memories of fairly-recent hits by wimpy guys with nasal voices.

This isn't path-breaking stuff - electronica has been a well established gimmick for classic artists to experiment with for a while now. Everyone's done it - Bowie with typical chameleon-like precision, Jagger with predictably pretentiousness and distaste (on that rather worthless Goddess In The Doorway solo album). Paul Simon isn't staking a claim as a fearless trailblazer here - rather, he's doing something that has worked well for him before, reinvigorating his music with the addition of seemingly alien elements. It's to his credit that he is able to pull off a worthy album in the process, one that doesn't stick out as a bandwagonesque deviation on his musical path or a simple layering of electronic blips and bleeps in order to sound current.

What does let this album down a bit is the shortage of memorable melodies or really cohesive songs. Many of the aforementioned songs tend to meander about through a variety of moods, which a brave and good thing to do, but at times the cumulative impact is just a little too hard to pin down. The lyrics are the same - they touch upon what my friend Ravi characterises as the usual old-guy rocker issues of the moment - 9/11, identity, faith and so forth, but in an often confoundingly equivocative way. 'Beautiful', for instance, seems to be about the joys of adopting babies from thrid-world countries, but its hard to tell precisely what point Simon is making here, pro or con. You can chalk it up to subtlety, which is good, but sometimes it all seems a bit too vague. I need some of that clarity now! Still, I won't rate the odd strcutures and opaque (or at least translucent) lyrics as real minuses - mostly, they help create an album that doesn't just shoot its load first time around, but delivers on repeated listens.

Some of the best songwriting on this album checks in fairly late with 'Another Galaxy' and the wonderful 'Once Upon A Time There Was An Ocean'. On the very last song, Simon chucks Eno out and strikes up a straightforward ode to his love for his daughter, 'Father And Daughter', a song which will either seem maudlin or sweet to you.

The Eiderdown-Stuffing Bottomline: In the end, Surprise is slightly more laudable than memorable. It is never unlistenable however, and the more Eno-ised and freeform songs do grow on you, so it's worth giving it some time to sink in. Simon fans will not find an unrecognisably mutated artist here, but you won't be disappointed if you're interested in hearing a classic artist exploring new territory with taste and intelligence.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - 'Tender Prey'
1988

Rating - 8/B

Tender Prey was Nick Cave's 5th album with The Bad Seeds, his solo-career backing band, the last of his 1980s albums - he took a break to write his (rather good) novel, And The Ass Saw The Angel soon after - and the last album written and recorded while living in Berlin. It showcases an artist who has moved consistently in a more diverse direction since the punkish caterwauling of his first band, The Birthday Party, and the equally disturbing but slower and more stripped-down sounds of his earliest work with The Bad Seeds. The accesible elements - real melodies, discernable song structures and reasonably palatable singing - are well matched with a broad palette of sounds that draws from blues, folk and avant-garde influences to create a shifting, but instantly recognisable backdrop for Cave's dark tales of love, lust, murder and religion. I think it presents Cave as a consolidated and fully-formed entity - elements of his past work are combined in a manner that would more or less represent the direction in which he moved for the next decade or so. More importantly, it's a pretty strong album with no really weak or unapproachable material on it.

The centerpiece, and opener, of this whole experience is of course The Mercy Seat. A dark, haunting narrative spat out in the persona of a convicted murdered on death row, awaiting his turn in the electric chair's 'mercy seat', it bristles with fury and desperation, Biblical imagery, and evokes defiance and resignation in equal measure. Musically, the song rides on a throbbing, dynamic Bad Seeds backing, complete with German noise-master Blixa Bargeld conjuring an unholy tempest on guitar, augmented with dramatic strings. The song is really long, but its sprawling length is kept taut with an unbroken intensity of delivery, which just the right amount of counter-weighing melody and regret, and it never seems over-extended. It's a strong, compelling lyrical statement and the music matches the mood perfectly. Perhaps no one other than Nick Cave could conceive of or pull off a song like this, and it deserves its place as a perennial feature on his live setlists.

The other material rarely reaches The Mercy Seat's apocalyptic heights, but it's not just filler, either. Deanna sounds vaguely like a doo-wop or early garage rock song, but played with a psychotic verve than no actual 50s or early 60s artists were allowed to portray on record. The lyrics are about the protagonist imploring his lover to join him in killing spree in a fast car - classic Nick Cave stuff. It's also bloody catchy. Sugar Sugar Sugar works on similar lines musically, but is less concise.

Up Jumped The Devil is an archetypal hard-luck story that begins with the narrator's mother dying in the course of a messy and bloody delivery, and ends at the gallows pole, with that mean old devil watching in delight all along the way. A chilling song, shot through with black humour and built on a lurching, brooding musical base that turns a rather melodious and almost pretty piano motif to dark purpose. The group vocals on the choruses add to the folk-gone-psycho feel. It's all so melodic and genuinely hooky under the darkness and doom, which is the hallmark of the best Cave material, if you ask me. City Of Refuge builds a vaguely gospel/bluesy feel into another frantic, desperate hard-luck tale on similar lines, though equally compelling in its own right. Sunday's Slave again revolves around a pulsing rhythm and decidedly melodic piano lines while Cave weaves a dark fable based around days of the week and what sounds to me like a rather negative attitude towards the priestly class. I could be wrong of course - Cave's religious views are especially opaque to me. He sure likes his Biblical imagery though.

Among the slower songs, Watching Alice is an especially lovely ballad-like song, although the lyrics confound you here - they seem to be about an especially mournful voyeur. Or is it a metaphor for the alienation and isolation within a once-close relationship? Either way, it's haunting. Mercy weaves togeher arresting but somewhat opaque lyrical images, a vaguely Eastern touch and desprate pleas for mercy. It's a subjective thing, but it works less well for me than the almost Leonard Cohen-ish (though, always, less urbane and more morbid) Slowly Goes The Night. Maybe it's only because the latter song has xylophone on it to make it more special, or because the choruses on the former just feel too monotonous and whiney to me. Genralised pleas for mercy just don't fit Cave's unique blend of piss-and-vinegar and doomed romanticism at this moment.

New Morning seems to end the album on a positive note, and I'm not sure whether it's intended as a genuine respite from the darkness elsewhere (although this song is more of a light-after-the-terrible-night message than an unalloyed ode to joy and hope) or some sort of ironic gesture. Anyway it serves as a lightening factor and a good way to end the album, unless you have the Video Mix of The Mercy Seat on your version, which is an even better way to end the album.

The Eiderdown-Stuffing Bottomline: Folk, blues, and other rootsy influences combine with apocalyptic stomp and swagger and Cave's growing melodicity. Everything's dark and doom-laden, although musical variety, touches of black humour and an ambiguous gesture of hope keep things diverse. Easily one of the peaks of Cave's first decade as a solo artist.