October 28, 2011

Album Reviews: Tom Waits - 'Bad As Me'

It's not up there with the best

Album Info

Release Date: October 24, 2011
Producer: Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan
Label: ANTI-
Fact: This is his first studio album of entirely new music in seven years

6 / 10 You don’t have to be old to start baying like a hellhound at the prospect of a new Tom Waits record. The postmodern blues croaker has enjoyed a career arc in stark opposition to rock’s littered landscape of beautiful corpses, only improving as age has made him sound more in need of a throat lozenge. As such, ‘Bad As Me’ has to rank as a disappointment, since there are no surprises to match ‘Real Gone’’s sepulchral funk or ‘Orphans…’’ breathtaking sweep. Still, it’s a thrill hearing him kick out the jams with Keef (‘Last Leaf’) and extending a heartfelt, raspy fuck-you to the bankers in ‘Everybody’s Talking’. A-wooo, etc.

Alex Denney