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By Zane Ewton
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Most expectations surrounding a new release from Tom Waits can usually be thrown out the window upon the first listen.  With Real Gone, his first new album in two years, Waits has created something that defies explanation but is completely riveting.  Most tracks were started in his bathroom, by Wait's doing beat-box into a tape recorder, and for the first time in his career there is no piano to be found.

Waits describes the album himself by saying, "Real Gone is an electric pill box, a homogenous concoction of mood elevators, mind liberators and downers, an alchemical universe of rattling chains, oscillating rhythms and nine-pound hammers."
 
I don't know what that means but I know that Real Gone hits the emotional highs, lows and everywhere in between.  The lyrics are, as usual, an essential element to the album.  The songs are full of the characters and imagery that has been the artist's trademark but on Real Gone they lean toward abstract and compacted, full of shouts and hollers.
 
The first two tracks, "Top of the Hill" and "Hoist That Rag", rely heavy on the beat box noises Waits was making in his bathroom.  He used the cut-and-paste method of hip-hop to create sounds and songs with a slight island feel to them.  "Sins of My Father" is a slow reggae song, peppered with political references; politics have never been a topic in Wait's music but sneaks into a few tracks on Real Gone.
 
Waits uses his voice and other bangs and clangs in "Don't Go into That Barn" to the effect of a train picking up steam, barreling through a small town.  "How's it Gonna End" is slightly more traditional, a bleak song about the seedy characters in Waits world.  The first verse sums it up:
  
"He had 3 whole dollars
A worn out car
And a wife who was
Leaving for good
Life's made of trouble
Worry pain and struggle
She wrote goodbye in
The dust on the hood
They found a map of Missouri
Lipstick on the glass
They must of left
In the middle of the nite"
 

"Circus" features Wait's son Casey on drums, backing up what sounds like the remnants of a carousel.  Only Tom Waits is able to sing the lyrics "she looked at me squinty with her one good eye in a Roy Orbison t-shirt as she bottle fed an Orangutan named Tripod," and have it not only taken seriously but fit perfectly.

"Green Grass" is a love song, sweet but sinister.  "Clang Boom Steam" sounds exactly as the title would imply.  The final song, "Day After Tomorrow" is a deeply emotional and quasi-political song.  It is a soldier's letter home, devoid of any shine and more timeless than any other political song.

Waits' albums have always been left of center but as evidence on this album, he is able to grab the listener with odd noises and textures but the whole purpose is to bring us down to the essential emotions.  Rarely can music be so difficult yet so accessible.  Real Gone is an exceptional album and Waits is definitely an essential character in music.
 

Tom Waits � Real Gone
Label: Anti Records
Rating:

Tracks:
1. Top Of The Hill 
 2. Hoist That Rag 
 3. Sins Of My Father 
 4. Shake It 
 5. Don't Go Into That Barn 
 6. How's It Gonna End 
 7. Metropolitan Glide 
 8. Dead And Lovely 
 9. Circus 
 10. Trampled Rose 
 11. Green Grass 
 12. Baby Gonna Leave Me 
 13. Clang Boom Steam 
 14. Make It Rain 
 15. Day After Tomorrow 
 
 

Visit the official website for Tom Waits

check out Anti Records for more on this CD

Purchase a copy of "Real Gone"