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- Artist: Tom Waits
- Rating:
- Release Date: 1992 08
- Total Time: 130:18
- Type: Lyrics are included with the album
- Genre: Rock
Review
Perhaps Tom Waits' most cohesive album, Bone Machine is a morbid, sinister nightmare, one that applied the quirks of his experimental '80s classics to stunningly evocative -- and often harrowing -- effect. In keeping with the title's grotesque image of the human body, Bone Machine is obsessed with decay and mortality, the ease with which earthly existence can be destroyed. The arrangements are accordingly stripped of all excess flesh; the very few, often non-traditional instruments float in distinct separation over the clanking junkyard percussion that dominates the record. It's a chilling, primal sound made all the more otherworldly (or, perhaps, underworldly) by Waits' raspy falsetto and often-distorted roars and growls. Matching that evocative power is Waits' songwriting, which is arguably the most consistently focused it's ever been. Rich in strange and extraordinarily vivid imagery, many of Waits' tales and musings are spun against an imposing backdrop of apocalyptic natural fury, underlining the insignificance of his subjects and their universally impending doom. Death is seen as freedom for the spirit, an escape from the dread and suffering of life in this world -- which he paints as hellishly bleak, full of murder, suicide, and corruption. The chugging, oddly bouncy beats of the more uptempo numbers make them even more disturbing -- there's a detached nonchalance beneath the horrific visions. Even the narrator of the catchy, playful "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" seems hopeless in this context, but that song paves the way for the closer "That Feel," an ode to the endurance of the human soul (with ultimate survivor Keith Richards on harmony vocals). The more upbeat ending hardly dispels the cloud of doom hanging over the rest of Bone Machine, but it does give the listener a gentler escape from that terrifying sonic world. All of it adds up to Waits' most affecting and powerful recording, even if it isn't his most accessible. ~ Steve Huey, All Music GuideTracks
| Track Title | Composers | Performers | Time |
| Earth Died Screaming | Tom Waits | Tom Waits | (3:36) |
| Dirt in the Ground | Tom Waits, |
Tom Waits | (4:07) |
| Such a Scream | Tom Waits | Tom Waits | (2:08) |
| All Stripped Down | Tom Waits | Tom Waits | (3:03) |
| Who Are You | Tom Waits, |
Tom Waits | (3:54) |
| The Ocean Doesn't Want Me | Tom Waits | Tom Waits | (1:49) |
| Jesus Gonna Be Here | Tom Waits | Tom Waits | (3:18) |
| Little Rain (For Clyde) | Tom Waits | (2:58) | |
| In the Colosseum | Tom Waits, |
Tom Waits | (4:50) |
| Goin' Out West | Tom Waits | (3:20) | |
| Murder in the Red Barn | Tom Waits | (4:28) | |
| Black Wings | Tom Waits | (4:35) | |
| Whistle Down the Wind (For Tom Jans) | Tom Waits | Tom Waits | (4:35) |
| I Don't Wanna Grow Up | Tom Waits | (2:31) | |
| Let Me Get up on It | Tom Waits | Tom Waits | (:53) |
| That Feel | Keith Richards, Tom Waits | Tom Waits | (3:13) |
