Tom Waits
Glitter & Doom Live
ANTI-
November 24, 2009
By Michael Walsh
The growl has never been so vicious.
It’s not a huge secret that Tom Waits’ voice will continue to change as he pushes on through his prolific and now legendary career. But luckily for Waits and his fans, this isn’t really a problem. Whereas most artists would feel the criticism from people telling them to hang it up, a grittier and raspier voice won’t detract from the energy of Waits or the level of enjoyment his fans get from listening to him perform.
And it’s nice to see Waits keep going strong. The man has already put in four studio albums of varying flavor this decade alone and adds to that total with his latest, Glitter & Doom Live, a compilation of the best of the best from his most recent tour.
Designed to sound like a single night with Waits, the album is really a collection of highlights from Waits’ recent tour of the same name. There are 17 tracks selected from 10 cities ranging from Paris to Atlanta. Waits scales through his collection of recordings, but most of the choices on this compilation come from his last four albums. Waits does dig back to his stranger times, bringing back beloved tracks like “Singapore” from the unbeatable Rain Dogs album and “Dirt in the Ground” from Bone Machine, something I was especially glad to hear.
The storytelling in form of song is alive and well in Waits’ eclectic and dazzling style that only he’s able to bring to the table. The actor and musician is a showman, and you can just hear that on the record as the crowd gets involved.
Waits brings rhythmic bluesy songs and ballads with help from the full band behind him. Glitter & Doom Live is something all fans are going to want to hear. It’s another episode in his long, strange career that’s shifted back and forth from musician to actor time and time again.
There’s absolutely nobody else like Tom Waits. With only a few weeks to go until the man turns 60, fans owe themselves the joy of checking in on Waits in this new chapter of his career.
