Real Gone

Waits builds this record out of percussion he made with his own mouth, junkyard rhythms and beatboxing standing in for a drummer, so that the machine is human and the human sounds broken down.

"Clang Boom Steam" is nearly all that — voice and clatter, no melody to hide behind — and it dares you to hear it as anything but a man banging on the walls of his own throat. Against that grit sits "Day After Tomorrow," a soldier's letter home sung plain and quiet, the one moment where the noise drops away and the words carry alone. That contrast is the argument: this is Waits refusing to let age soften him while proving he can still break your heart when he chooses. He came out of it sounding rawer at fifty-four than most artists manage at twenty.