Tom Waits--that bastard, wild-eyed, character of an uncle we all wish we had is back with his first album in seven years, Bad As Me. Alongside Mr. Waits is his longtime collaborator and wife (and saint!), Kathleen Brennan, his son Casey on drums, Keith Richards, Flea, and Charlie Musselwhite, amongst a few others. As a whole, this album is filled with short songs, the longest being just over four minutes. Long time fans will find nothing terribly new here, which is not a bad thing at all. Waits is characteristically weird, tender, gruff, bluesy, and woozy. He has has formula down, however idiosyncratic it is. Most of these songs are slower love songs that trace a lineage back to his earliest material. There is less strange vaudeville akin to Frank's Wild Years than one might expect but when he caters to his more sensitive side, we see what a gem of a songwriter he is. Don't get me wrong, this is not typical songwriting, however, he sounds less like a muppet and more of an old blues singer. There's enough variation here that all that oldness and weirdness-- all those frantic, busted melodies, all that carnie growl never gets tiresome. For all his indulgences, Waits never lingers too long; these tracks are concise and expertly edited, and Bad as Me feels as new as it does ancient. It's the kind of music we're all gonna be glad we have come winter. I guarantee listening to this album is like drinking a fine bourbon.
Take a listen to the third track, Talking at the Same Time here. Get a load of Waits' take on the state of the economy set to a blues backdrop.
Buy your copy of Bad As Me here.
No comments:
Post a Comment