Tom Waits
Bad As Me

And now all of you go to hell.

It seems like the not-so-calm suggestion from the Pomona ogre to those who doubt his artistic presence. From the very first song of the album, with the nervous brass of "Chicago" called to light the fuse, we understand that we are faced with the usual threat to public and recording peace. 

Seven years after the superb Real Gone, here he is again among us. The most interesting novelty is the grand return of the piano, almost entirely absent in the experimental last studio work, where Marc Ribot's guitar undisputedly reigned supreme. He seems to enjoy retracing his steps. And thus "Raised Right Men" seems to have been released belatedly from Heartattack and Vine and Talking at the Same Time embodies metropolitan sadness and indifference, with a chorus "Everybody’s talking at the same time" reminiscent of that "And all over the world Strangers Talk only about the weather" from a few years back. Then "Get Lost", a crazy and furious rockabilly, reshuffles the deck once more.

The heart of the album is reached unexpectedly, a goosebump-inducing triptych. "Face to the Highway", "Pay Me" and "Back in the Crowd" begin to suggest that Bad as Me is not just the latest Waits album, but one of the most successful episodes of his entire discography.

If you don’t want these arms to hold you, If you don’t want these lips to kiss you, Put me back in the crowd.

And if "Bad as Me" is the leading single, good for letting everyone know well in advance that the devil was on his way, "Kiss Me" is something for old scruffy wolves, something from the Asylum Years and nights spent as dreamy sleepwalkers.

He surely enjoyed involving Keith Richards in such a majestic album, collaborating on four tracks of the album. Waits first teases him with "Satisfied", then calls him to himself in "Last Leaf". Richards lends his heart, voice, and guitar, and one almost gets emotional hearing these two croon sweetly and in unison: "I’m the last leaf on the tree."

After the sonic storm of "Hell Broke Luce" — and tell me if Hidalgo and Ribot's guitars don't sound like chainsaws — the closure arrives with a Christmassy "New Year's Eve". The last, yet another ballad of an impeccable, romantic, and tentacular album. 

P.S. I rarely find myself disagreeing with the judgments expressed by Buscadero. Except this time. Whoever wrote about Bad as Me that "it is not a masterpiece, it doesn’t have the strength of Mule Variations" might consider changing their profession. But in the end, who cares... To hell with it, indeed.