Album: Grinderman, Grinderman 2 (Mute)

Compared to their debut's howls of sexual frustration, this second offering from Nick Cave's Grinderman has moments of almost tender introspection, such as the eerie reminiscences of "What I Know", and bawdy humour, as in "Worm Tamer": "My baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster – two great big humps, and then I'm done".

But it's every bit as surreally malevolent, from the galloping hell-hound riff of "Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man" to the diseased itch of the concluding "Bellringer Blues". Along the way, "Palaces of Montezuma" blends shuffling gait and harmonies in "Sympathy for the Devil" fashion, while the haunting violin of "When My Baby Comes" tracks the course from "Madame George" to "Sister Ray". It's tremendous stuff.

DOWNLOAD THIS Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man; Palaces of Montezuma; Evil; When My Baby Comes; Bellringer Blues