Tom Waits 'Bad As Me'

Tom Waits
Bad As Me
(Anti-/Warner)

The booming hype around the new Tom Waits album isn’t so different from that of the new PJ Harvey album earlier this year. The albums aren’t so different, either. Both are bold and fearless yet earthy and loose, harnessing age-old blues while leaning on crack collaborators and a deserving ire at the current state of things.

Waits’ first all-new album since 2004, Bad As Me is just the defiant bark into the darkness you’d expect. It also, however, proceeds with the amiable flow of some scorched-earth jukebox, a relic of distant musical history. His famous voice still capable of gasping and grating on contact, Waits is backed by one hell of a rogues gallery. Keith Richards plays guitar (what else?) on four tracks, while Marc Ribot and David Hidalgo (Los Lobos) also wield and throttle the instrument. Flea plays bass on two songs and Les Claypool on one. Waits himself mostly dons guitar and piano, co-writing and -producing with regular collaborator Kathleen Brennan.

The past, present and future splinter here, from the harmonica growl and “all aboard” command of opener ‘Chicago’ to the long list of of disturbing similes guessing at the hereafter on bonus track 'After You Die’. Waits is at once devoted keeper of the past – citing Wolfman Jack and ‘Love Me Tender’ on ‘Get Lost’ and picking at The Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ on ‘Satisfied’ – and grotesque, sneering comic.

Coming off as a vagabond preacher dispensing roadside wisdom on ‘Face to the Highway’, Waits is a singer-songwriter-musician with a scorching moral compass. ‘Raised Right Men’ makes a resonant lamentation – “There ain’t enough raised right men” – while ‘Hell Broke Luce’ is a blues stomp forged in the wars of recent history and the barroom slow burn ‘Talking at the Same Time’ tackles the world’s economic fallout. Even as the title track sums up the album with its honking instrumentation and Waits’ unsteady wince and lurch, he dials back his animal side for a pair of beautifully layered old-world ballads in ‘Pay Me’ and ‘Back in the Crowd’.

Pared down to just him and upright bassist Marcus Shelby, ‘Kiss Me’ is whispered karaoke over the smoking rubble of the past. Along with the acceptance of outmodedness on ‘Last Leaf’ (“I’m like some vestigial tail”), it nails the power of Bad As Me (and to an extent, Waits himself): so simple on the surface yet so tangled and conflicted beneath. And for all the vigour of his feral bite, Waits is just as likely to supply a healing balm afterwards.

Doug Wallen