Stripped down, rough edged tunes from the rough guy. Shaping our minds, souls, and future of music as he goes along, Tom Waits releases another gem. This one offers little in way of comfort. The beats are harsh, the tunes are minimal and sad, and the result is amazing and will leave you shuttered. All-star team of musicians includes Marc Ribot, Les Claypool and more (but no keyboards/piano!).
As he often does, Waits offers a blend of soulful ballads and harsh industrial scratchy-beats tracks. I liked the ballads better, but I know MPH will disagree. Anyway, there is not one uninteresting track on this one. The man has done it again.
Favorites: 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 12, 15.

1. Pseudo-industrial beat, heavily processed vox shooting the words out, harsh and cold as ice, human beatbox. Waits’ son Casey on turntables.
2. * Clunky percussion, scratchy vox, great guitar. *
3. ** Long, minimal, laid back, baptism metaphore. Horse-stroll percussion, beautiful guitar and bass backing, add Waits' tranquil vox, and other instruments… you wish it would go on forever. **
4. Harsh beat, claps, Waits voice keeps beat, but breaks out of the beat in "bridges". Wow.
5. * Scary, shouts at chorus, dark backing vox, slow/mid tempo. Believe me, I am NOT going to go into that barn. Yeah. *
6. Quiet ballad, monotonous minimal banjo backdrop strum, bear-growl vox. Beautiful.
7. Turntable action that Waits imitates with his voice. Less percussion, muted guitar plucking. Quiet but still jagged, shouts, noise. Just listen to him laugh/choke at the end…
8. Amazing, classic sounding ballad. Very relaxed jazzy guitar, percussion, quiet growling bass.
9. * Another quiet tune. Spoken lyrics, bells, airy percussion. Classic Waits characters such as One Eyed Myra and Horse Face Ethel. *
10. * Broom sweep, great toned-down vox, minimal banjo strum backdrop.*
11. More minimalism. Deep throaty vox, quiet acoustic backdrop, beautiful bass... so pretty. Whistle at the end.
12. * Back to harshness. Shouts, shakers, and percussion give the mid tempo beat. Great “na na na” chorus unites Claypool, Ribot and Waits for a moment of bliss. *
13. Slow industrial beat, loud church-like bell, short.
14. Rusty vox, slow steady percussion and great guitar building up.
15.** Anti-war, soldier letter to home. Quiet, even more minimal than other tracks. Very American, even makes me think of the Star Spangled Banner, even does some humming. As powerful as it is quiet, great lyrics. Featured on the MoveOn.org compilation, Future Soundtrack for America. **
16. [1 min quiet before this unlisted track] Vox doing the beats, turntables, short and noisy finish.