Tom Waits "Bad As Me"

I can't pretend this is going to be a balanced review. The subject is Tom Waits' seventeenth studio release, and it comes seven years after Real Gone (Anti, 2004). Bad As Me (Anti, 2011) features all the heartbreaking and experimental instrumentation and lyrics that helped Mr. Waits into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year.

This record utilizes mostly conventional instruments like much of his earlier work but the spectrum of sounds is vast including strings, brass, woodwinds, organ, marimba, piano, maracas, accordion, etc. All amazingly produced to accompany his legendary rough voice. The opener, "Chicago," applies some great brass that immediately brings to mind the blues and jazz music of the Second City, while Waits delivers the empty promise that "everything will be better in Chicago."

A little later, "Talking At the Same Time" has him singing a little falsetto and absent of rasp, yet the tremolo-laden guitar and the tickling piano provide the smooth background for him to get away with it. And all that smoothness gets eradicated with "Get Lost," a faster soul tune about the attraction of the leaving the mundane behind. The fast and raw is perfectly set off with the slow and smokey. There's even some Latin influence on "Back In the Crowd."

Every track is exemplary of his absolutely masterful songwriting talents. "Face To the Highway" describes some of the many things that want, animate or not. There's "Kiss Me," which illustrates the unbridgeable gap between the beginning and end of a relationship. The crushing loneliness of "Last Leaf" will bring you to your knees. "Hell Broke Luce" will help release some of that pent-up frustration with war. But ultimately everything is more or less resolved with some conflicted cynical optimism on "New Year's Eve."

There is no doubt in my mind that Waits' fans new and old will find that Bad As Me fits perfectly in line with the unbelievable body of work that dates back to 1972. The album is set to release on October 24. Get it here. You won't be disappointed.