MOG

Rating: 7.8

Nick Cave is the perfect example of why music will never die - after the last notes are discovered, after every possible melody, rhythm, and lyric are exhausted, there's still gonna be someone who comes by and does it all over again...with attitude.

It's this elusive (a little too elusive in today's musical goulash, if you ask me) thingamajig called attitude that Nick Cave simply smoulders in. Not the eyeliner caked my-stepdad-is-a-douch kind of attitude, or the ear gauged I-wear-a-leather-wristband to the mosh-pit type either. Nor the bragging machismo in hip-hop, or the me-too politic bashing of basically everyone else right now. I'm talking true blue, John Wayne was a slow-talkin' badass type of attitude. Much like the famed Supreme Justice's 'definition' of pornography - it's hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Or.. in this case.. hear it.

Speakin' of porno and John Wayne... put the two in a blender, mix in a self deprecating sort of humor, give it a serious dose of good ol' fashioned blues rock, and, as Emeril would say, BAM. You got Nick Cave (in this case with band Grinderman).

Almost every track on the album is a braggin barfight in song... the type of fight where the skinny dude in cowboy boots, a half cigarette danglin' from his mouth, walks over real slow to the huge tatooed trucker, and in a flash of motion grabs the big guy's wrist, twists it just right, and has him beggin for mercy on the bar-counter. Of course, beers are on the house afterwards.

There's a couple of missteps... Vortex is a slow almost pretty meandering, and pretty is just plain out of place here. Chain of Flowers is a similar venture, with its "dontcha know it's gonna be alright" feeling just a little too cliched.

Overall, it gets under your skin the same way a car-chase movie makes you want to floor the pedal of your honda on the way home. If you dig Cave's red-right-hand style vocals, if you can get into the dark sense of humor, and if you don't mind feeling like less of a man in his presence - but can appreciate it giving you something to aspire too - give grinderman a spin.

EDIT: The song posted is "Man on the Moon"... not Honeybee. Sorry folks.