Tom Waits - Blood Money (2002, Remastered 2017) Lossless

Based on director Robert Wilson's horrific tale of a 19th century Prussian soldier subjected to medical experiments after being driven insane by his cheating woman, Tom Waits' Blood Money is-contrarily--the funniest Waits album since his late 1970s drunken cabaret period. The musical landscape is painted by alternately stomping or swaying jazz rhythms and melodies, pizzicato strings, sexy mutant Latin guitars, wailing harmonicas, lyrical clarinets and drunken brass, while Waits utilises every voice--from poisoned croon to martial rant--that he's ever stumbled upon, as his metaphors and killing jokes turn horror into bleak hilarity.

Ignore those who say that Blood Money is the evil, inaccessible twin of the concurrently-released Alice--they perhaps don't appreciate the desire for redemption and the love of humanity that lies behind the ironies of all great black comedy. Blood Money is a new musical and poetic peak, and the greatest Tom Waits album yet. --Garry Mulholland.