Mule Variations

Description

Since 1993s BLACK RIDER album consisted of music written by Waits and William Burroughs to accompany a Robert Wilson play, hard-liners consider 92s BONE MACHINE to be the last official Waits album before the seven-year wait that ended with the release of MULE VARIATIONS. Unsurprisingly, Waits lives up to the expectations engendered by that lengthy wait. In fact, there are more stylistic threads connecting MULE VARIATIONS to BONE MACHINE than to BLACK RIDER. The chugging rock drive of the opener Big in Japan (featuring Primus) recalls Goin Out West. Whats He Building? is a wonderfully devilish spoken word piece a la Ken Nordine (one of Waits heroes) much akin to BONE MACHINEs The Ocean Doesnt Want Me Today. Waits also continues BONE MACHINEs exploration/deconstruction of traditional blues and gospel, making for some of MULE VARIATIONS strongest tracks (the bluesy Get Behind the Mule and Chocolate Jesus). Ultimately, with a few exceptions, this is Waits most low-key, ballad-heavy album in some time, and hes at his simplest and most affecting on tunes like Take It With Me, which represent an unprecedented level of emotional nakedness in his writing.