Albums by this artist

Alice (2002)

Blood Money (2002)

Tom Waits

Blood Money

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» JOSH PERRY | STAFF WRITER

Tom Waits Blood Money Anti, 2002 RiYL: Nick Cave, Captain Beefheart, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Blood Money is drawn from Tom Waits' original contributions to "Woyzeck," a German play that details the disintegration of a soldier going mad after many wartime experiments. The eponymous protagonist eventually murders his lover and actually goes clinically crazy. Here, this grim tale is musically retold by a slightly crazed Waits, replete with rattles and clatters that would usually evoke cringes. But Blood Money is imbued with a skewed fluidity that is somehow comforting, as it describes the havoc heaped on the hero's vilified soul.

More then a musician, a singer, or even a songwriter, Waits is a curator of chaos with a palette nicked from Jackson Pollock. While some will find only confusion on this disc, the dedicated can discover brilliance. The key: Blood Money should be heard as a complete piece of music -- like watching a play -- and some tracks that might appear thin on their own will be revealed as far meatier in context.

Therefore, the best advice I can give soundbooth shoppers is to listen to "All The World Is Green" and "God's Away On Business" for an idea of this disc's far-reaching scope. The former is as accommodatingly smooth as Waits gets, a virtual White Russian to the stale scotch of "God's Away On Business."

"All The World..." recalls the longing balladry of "Strange Weather," as feathered cello and wafting clarinet float lightly under the velvet streams of a murmuring marimba and Waits' tender acoustic plucking and dreary delivery. "God's Away On Business," on the other hand, is a maniacal blizzard of slash-and-burn instrumentation that rattles to the heavens as if Satan himself has escaped and is stirring up some shit. Growling and scoffing, Waits snaps "I'd sell your heart to a junkman baby / for a buck, for a buck," and fie on any who doubt his evil sincerity.

JOSH PERRY |