Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is easily Tom's best album in years. Doing what he does best, but too rarely - play live -his latest effort sparkles and pulses with a ferocity of life that leaps out of your sound system - and pulls you - screaming or willingly - into the live freak show that is "Glitter and Doom." Recorded over the course of his 2008 tour, the two discs are separated and mixed into a sort of hybrid (one singing/one talking) that somehow feels perfectly natural and in all reality plays exactly how most listeners will want it, rather than breaking up the songs with too-long narratives that play well in a club, but tend to drag down a purely aural experience.
The 17 songs of Disc One play out at over 70 minutes of electrifying music with Waits and his band running the gamut from his own unique version of "high energy" carnival music to full on, break your heart ballads all delivered in that inimitable voice that season-after-season increases its rasp and its grasp on his audience.
It would be impossible to single out a "best" number, but there are several that - on first hearing - stood out a bit above the rest. "The Part You Throw Away" (recorded in Edinburgh) from the album "Blood Money" with its pizzicato strings and the endless pathetic waltz undulating, beneath and a old world Spanish-style guitar solo is one of those timeless numbers that could have come from the Jacques Brel Songbook - or written a century ago.
In similar fashion, Disc One's closer, "Lucky Day" (recorded in Atlanta) is a gooseflesh and teary-eyed finale that has that Waits ballad operatic feel
Along the way there is that Waits prose that paints pictures in the mind more than almost any songwriter in the last 50 years. For instance, who but Mr. Waits could come up with lyrics like those in Circus Lyrics ((here, "Live Circus"):
"Topping the bill was Horse Face Ethel
And her 'Marvellous Pigs In Satin'"
The ambient audience noise feels natural and non-intrusive - and Waits feeds off their respective energies like a vampire at a blood orgy. Everybody wins with "Glitter and Doom."
Click Here to see more reviews about: Glitter and Doom Live
In 2008, Tom Waits launched a sold out national tour,garnering intense critical praise Paste magazine called it thebest live show of 2008 and thrilling fans across the countryand the world, some in cities where Waits had never playedbefore. Now comes the document of those concerts, 17performances hand picked by Waits from along the tour.Leaning heavily on songs from his ANTI releases including ahaunting Trampled Rose from Real Gone and roaring GetBehind the Mule from Mule Variations Waits also digs intothe vaults for tracks like a reimagined Singapore from 1985 sRain Dogs. Glitter and Doom Live will reside in the Waitscatalog alongside earlier live albums like Nighthawks at theDiner and Big Time, both discs held on par with his classicstudio releases by fans.
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