Thirty-five years and 20 albums into his legendary songwriting career, Tom Waits has managed to reinvent himself with every studio recording without becoming unrecognizable to his long-time fans. This is a musician who has mostly shied away from constantly touring around the globe, instead choosing to earn a majority of his fan base through the quality of his many top-drawer studio recordings. Fans have been waiting anxiously for a new batch of Waits tunes since Real Gone, his 2004 release.
Waits’ new offering is not only more than worth the wait, but one of his most engaging and revealing releases.
Before looking at his newest collection of mostly unreleased material, one must pause to recognize just a handful of his many groundbreaking albums: Nighthawks at the Diner, Small Change, Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, Bone Machine and Mule Variations, just to name a few.
With so many remarkable collections at his disposal, it is nearly impossible to believe that Mr. Waits could ever outdo himself, but in many ways, he has done just that with his new three-CD set Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards.
Each disc of this collection of mostly unreleased material is intended to be a separate album in itself. Brawlers consists mainly of ridiculously catchy rock and blues songs. Bawlers is a collection of ballads, while Bastards is, well, self-explanatory. It’s a very unique and unorthodox set of experimental and spoken word cuts that the casual Waits fan could not appreciate. Waits himself is quoted on metroactive.com describing the latter disc as, “… a lot of songs that fell behind the stove while making dinner.”
From the very beginning of Brawlers, Waits delivers a tune that is a throwback to his ’80’s material with “Lie to Me.” From there, Waits continues to sling his listeners through the 16-song set with his unique vocal versatility, superior penmanship, unorthodox percussion and devastatingly catchy riffs. “Fish in the Jailhouse” tells the story of a prison inmate who escaped with nothing but a fish bone.
With standout tracks such as “2:19,” “Bottom of the World” and “Walk Away,” Waits proves once again that he is still one of the best songwriters and musical arrangers of our time. “Road to Peace” is one of Waits’ few politically-influenced songs, taking a mighty jab at President George Bush from the perspective of a Palestenian suicide bomber.
Bawlers is more of a throwback to Waits’ early “diner rock” work. This disc is chock-full of beautifully arranged ballads such as “Bend Down the Branches,” “Take Care of All My Children” and “Never Let Go.” Perhaps the most standout track on disc two of Orphans is “You Can Never Hold Back Spring,” a brief but powerful arrangement reminiscent of old Louis Armstrong recordings. Waits is virtually unparalleled as a writer and arranger of ballads, and he adds a completely different dimension to them with his distinct vocal versatility.
Bastards is certainly the weirdest of the three discs. It is mostly comprised of spoken-word pieces such as “Missing My Son,” two tunes originally penned by novelist/poet Jack Kerouac and traditional folk-inspired tunes. “Two Sisters” is a highlight from this disc, which is mainly unappreciated by listeners unfamiliar to Waits. For true fans, however, Bastards is quite an enjoyable listen and perhaps the most intriguing of the three albums in this collection.
This 56-song anthology of sorts offers some of Waits’ most captivating material since his 1992 album Bone Machine, which won a Grammy award for best alternative music album of the year.
It could be argued that Waits is concerned more with quantity than quality with this 3-hour-long collection, but a vast majority of the material on this album is a testament to his status as one of the most prolific musicians of the late 20th century. Despite its extended time length, Orphans is a borderline instant-classic collection of first-rate tunes that will satisfy the thirst of any Waits fan.
Tom Waits, Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
4/5 stars