Grinderman began life with tongues in cheek – songs about mid-life crises referencing combovers and interviews mentioning "sheilas". However, their second album suggests they are now seriously rivalling their members' alter ego, the Bad Seeds. In fact, Grinderman 2 most recalls singer Nick Cave's old band, the Birthday Party, in mixing horror and black humour with barely tamed musical malevolence. Songs rampage from garage swamp blues to psychedelic Stooges rock. Guitarist Warren Ellis's bouzouki makes sounds you'd expect in an abattoir, not a studio. There are some terrific songs – notably the sublime Palaces of Montezuma and the epic, apocalyptic Bellringer Blues. Cave's stream-of-consciousness imagery hurls up everything from personifications of evil and pops at politicians to "the spinal chord of JFK wrapped in Monroe's negligee". Those yearning for the earlier Grinderman's rip-roaring one-liners will be more than pacified by Worm Tamer's priceless couplet: "My baby calls me the Loch Ness monster. Two great big humps and I'm gone."