Tom Waits

Waits' debut LP on Island was a self-produced effort, making the imaginative Swordfishtrombones more akin to a lost Beefheart session than the piano-based howling of yore. The monologues, like "Frank's Wild Years," shed the barfly persona for Dada flair, though when the songs get a touch more cogent -- as with the hammering "16 Shells from a 30-6," or with swampy jives like "Down, Down, Down" or "Gin Soaked Boy" -- they remain as bizarre as all get-out. Introductions to Waits' late-career surrealism abound, so buckle up: it's a truly wild ride.

Tom Waits' new album is so weird that Asylum Records decided not to release it, but it's so
good that Island was smart enough to pick it up. Half of the fifteen cuts–the dirty blues,
poetry recitals and odd instrumentals–would not sound out of place on a Captain Beefheart
album. The rest of the record consists of gorgeous Waitsian melodies, which haven't been
collected in such quantity since his ten-year-old debut album. It's easy to forget... More >

Though it never seemed likely that Waits had the intellect or self-discipline his talent deserved, after a full decade of half-cocked color he's put it together. He'll never sing pretty, but finally that's an unmitigated advantage. Taking a cue from his country cousin Captain Beefheart, he's making the music as singular as the stories, from the amplified Delta blues of "Gin Soaked Boy" to Victor Feldman's strange percussion devices (try the brake drum on "16 Shells From a 30-6"). And at the same time he's finding the tawdry naturalistic details he craves in less overtly bizarre locales--Australia, suburbia, his own head. (Grade: A-)