Bad as Me Anti*****

Tom Waits's colourful evocation of the lost and the lonely is so inviting that it's easy to miss the humanity at the centre of his often challenging music. His characters invariably have fallen on hard times, but many share a determination to prevail. This new collection of 16 "brawlers, bawlers and bastards" (as he memorably subtitled 2006's Orphans), is a powerful statement of survival. This runs from the opener Chicago, all big-city frenzy and fear as its southern narrator steps off the train to start a new life, to the closing After You Die. (Is it, he sings, "like a string that's broken?".) Joined again by guitarist Marc Ribot and wife Kathleen Brennan, Waits delivers a raft of great performances on tracks such as Raised Right Men, Let's Get Lost, Face to the Highwayand Put Me Back in the Crowd(described as Elvis meets Jim Reeves). The bawlers are wonderful, the brawlers full of muscle and mystery – and even the bastards have their place. See tomwaits. com

Download tracks: Put Me Back in the Crowd, Chicago