Chris DeLine

There’s something about hearing the Grinderman release that urged a want for new material from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; liken it to an aged marriage if you will. For years you go about your business, all the while caring with unabashed love – no matter what the other were to do, or how they were to do it, their actions would be beautiful in your eyes. As such, I’ve loved many of The Bad Seeds’ albums for years, no matter what they were to sound like I adored them without reserve; but I always ended up wanting something more. Just as many fail with the struggles of infidelity, brought on by a passionate new romance that teases everything you thought you wanted, Grinderman appeared with its self titled release flaunting all the cockiness and pounding rhythms that The Bad Seeds had always teased. On the surface it seemed something perfect, but it wasn’t, it was The Bad Seeds that I loved all along. I loved the band’s albums for what they were in the end and it seemed that the comfortable approach the band’s albums often took were misinterpreted as stale, and as such I felt them to be tired when in fact they were simply becoming favorites. I loved Grinderman and hope that some day another album surfaces, but I can’t help but think that Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! will be far more complete and fulfilling. The album’s title track and lead single seems to offer just what I had hoped, a song that teases Grinderman, but is ultimately Bad Seeds at its core.

[This post was first published by Culture Bully.]