Album review: Tom Waits, Bas As Me

INTO his seventh decade, Waits is still the barker at rock’n’roll’s most exclusive carnival

This 17th album boasts all the jazzy piano bar swagger of old, with a hefty measure of voodoo boogaloo, courtesy of long-standing collaborators Marc Ribot and Larry Taylor. For added intrigue Keith Richards staggers into a handful of songs here, most notably Satisfied, a stinging slab of rhythm and blues, with tongue loosely in cheek. “Now Mr Jagger and Mr Richards, I will scratch where I’ve been itching,” Waits growls, while Keith reminds us why he was once known as “The Human Riff”.

Cut from the same musical cloth is the storming Hell Broke Luce, a lurching triumph of debauched exotica, and an anti-war song worthy of dishonourable discharge.

As ever, Tom knows how to work schmaltz into something more substantial, incorporating Auld Lang Syne into New Year’s Eve, surely the seasonal bookend The Pogues’ Fairytale Of New York has been missing all these years. Put Me Back is sweet and sensitive, and Kiss Me tinged with beautiful regret.

This is a welcome reminder that great music makes its own rules.

RATING: *****

COLIN SOMERVILLE

• Download this: Bad As Me, Satisfied, Get Lost