Rating:A I was always a sucker for lo-fi, dirty recordings. This album feels like a film noir meets spaghetti western, where you can't tell who the bad guy is. Listening to Tom's vocals makes me want to take pictures of service station bathrooms, in a good way. The great thing about this album is you would never mistaken any other artists work for this. Every song is a story. One of my teachers told us about the time he almost committed suicide and he said "My life was a Tom Waits song, I was broke, living in a gentleman's hotel, picking out what tie could hold my weight when I hang myself from the water pipes. That was christmas eve, I got a call about fifteen minutes before I did it. That call was a job offer."Of course, like that story, these songs often have happy endings that are just happy enough to make you grin and keep on keeping on. This album is book of short stories that you would read on a road trip. I like it. Probably my favourite track was "Big in Japan", but honestly, every track was significant for me. enjoy
Rating: C
ReplyDeleteYour review for this album really made me want to like it before I even listened to it. Awesome review, hope to see some more!! As for the album, a C rating may seem low, but I still thought the album was really cool. I enjoyed the atmosphere and low quality production, and his voice was very strong on some songs. I really liked "Hold On" , "Georgia Lee" and "Come on Up to the House". I thought the ballads were the stronger points and he has a lot of emotion in each song. Overall though, an album of this genre was just too long for me, and featured too many tracks that didn't grab my attention. It's a calming album and I'm sure I will give it another couple listens.