Idolator Record-Review Round-Up: Tom Waits Just As Divisively Growly As Ever

– “With distorted guitars and loose-limbed drumming behind the wheeze and cackle of Mr. Waits’s voice, Brawlers collects rocking tall tales that contemplate love, sin and the road, and it could stand alongside Mr. Waits’ best albums. Most of the songs are blues, a few tuck romance behind the clatter, and one, ‘Road to Peace,’ is as journalistically detailed and bluntly political as anything in the Waits catalog.” [NY Times] – “[Tom Waits has] become this caricature of himself, and it was a cartoon character to begin with…it’s rehashed Captain Beefhart, fractured blues, [and] art-rock with him doing this boho, silly, ‘I’m this weird eccentric, dangerous dirty-old-man’ character. This is way more Tom Waits than I ever want to get in my lifetime.” [Sound Opinions, take one] – “The way he uses his voice on this record is really remarkable. I think he’s creating a different character for almost each song on this record…it’s not only is a summary of his career, I think it’s one of the best things he’s done in the last 20 years.” [Sound Opinions, take two] – “[Waits]long ago earned the status of perennially lauded/critically invulnerable artists alongside Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. At this point, the only thing left open to debate is, to paraphrase Stephen Colbert, Tom Waits: a great songwriter, or the greatest songwriter?” [Pitchfork] – “Grizzle grabble fuzzy jailhouse burga burga woo grizzle fishpan whiskey.” [Tom Waits on Tom Waits]