Rather than lest on his laurels, Nick Cave is forcing the world to still take him as seriously as it did 30 years ago. Following up one of the better albums of 2007 (and without question the best blue-balled anthem of the past 20 years, maybe ever) would be hard for anyone, but it's arguable that Nick Cave has already surpassed it with his new album with the Bad Seeds, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!. But far be it for Cave to stay in one place for more than 18 months; not only is he recording a new album with his Grinderman cohorts, but he promises it will sound nothing like his previous two albums:

"When we go in to make the next Grinderman record we don't want it to sound like the last Bad Seeds record or the Grinderman record before and we're forced to find something new. But that's always been the way!

"There's a lot of work around the Grinderman project that we wanna do in a more serious way this time. The thing about Grinderman was that we just threw out the [debut] record and we made it very quickly. We wondered about its affect on us and it was hugely important on The Bad Seeds."

While the prospect of a more focused, seriously thought-out Grinderman album is exciting, on another level it's nervewracking. Part of the whole appeal of the first album was its recklessness. Then again, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! was much more carefully produced, and it still sounded great. Let's see how long Cave can maintain this streak; we can only hope other current indie rock stars stay this vital at 50. [NME]