Bone Machine

Now that's how you start an album; the sounds of blunt instruments clanking together, followed by a harsh, animalistic voice, chanting "The Earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming." Our introduction into the Bone Machine.

I've been thinking for weeks now, how the hell do I even attempt to tackle this album in a review? An album so personal, so powerful, so goddamn haunting, that no words could possibly do it justice. And even as I type this, I honestly doubt that I'll be able to give this album the justice it deserves. So, to cut a long story short; it's just that good, and you should definitely listen to it if you haven't already.

An album of nothing but death. An artist looking at himself, the world, humanity, and giving the most pessimistic but honest message out there.
"'Cause hell is boiling over and heaven is full
We're chained to the world and we all gotta pull
And we're all gonna be
Just dirt in the ground"
It manages to be both terrifying and endlessly depressing at the same time. This is perhaps best seen in one of the final tracks of the album, I Don't Wanna Grow Up. There's something about a forty-something year-old man, with a voice that sounds like they spent the last twenty years smoking a dozen cigarettes a day, and childlike instrumentation hidden behind intentionally rough production that just manages to make you so uncomfortable, but so empathetic, and at the same time thinking about how right he is.
"When I see the 5 o'clock news
I don't wanna grow up
Comb their hair and shine their shoes
I don't wanna grow up
Stay around in my old hometown
I don't wanna put no money down
I don't wanna get me a big old loan
Work them fingers to the bone
I don't wanna float a broom
Fall in love and get married then boom
How the hell did it get here so soon
I don't wanna grow up"

So yeah, I don't know how anyone could tackle this album. This album has an extreme emotional response on me, one that has only ever been rivalled by Lou Reed's Berlin. But where that album was a gritty and realistic story, though still very much fictional, this one is an album of blunt, honest opinions. Just Tom's own brutal outlook on life; his life, the life of those around him, and the uselessness of it all. I could spend all night pulling out lines and verses from each of these songs, explaining why the likes of Earth Died Screaming, Who Are You This Time, The Ocean, In The Colosseum (and honestly the rest of the track listing) are all such masterpieces in songwriting, emotion, instrumentation and production, but I guess I'll just cut it short here. I think my thoughts have been conveyed fairly well in this relatively short review.

It's been a long time since I've come close to crying when listening to music, but every time I make the journey through this album, those last three songs force me to step away for a few minutes just so that I'm not left in a mess. Bone Machine is simply Waits' masterpiece, there's nothing else to be said.