“Bone Machine” is not just a departure from Tom’s previous sounds. It’s as if he boarded a train and traversed the landscapes of the country to birth something as unique as he is as a person. This album really contains everything that makes Tom Waits special, and I absolutely mean EVERYTHING. This is Tom Waits put into album form. The first four tracks show how dynamic his vocals can be, whether it’s his ultra-hellish bellow or his sensitive, yet off-putting falsetto. His vocal work entirely matches the tone (or tones) of the record, as the lyrics and experimental production create his most morbid work yet. The sound is almost industrial, with clangs of metal often acting as the percussion, with dissonant musical lines contributing to the everlasting apocalyptic feel this album invokes in the listener. Yet, I did say this album contains every bit of the Tom Waits we once knew (and will know in the next couple decades). “A Little Rain” and “Whistle Down The Wind” show that the “old Tom Waits” is still there, but juxtaposing those with the grotesque “In The Colosseum” and the uniquely abrasive, folk-tinged “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” makes it clear that the Asylum Waits vanished the moment the strings in “Ruby’s Arms” faded away. Ever since, he’s gone on a path of increasingly-unorthodox artistic discovery, culminating in arguably the most avant-garde Tom would ever be. Yes, he would make things just as bold as this album in the future, but nothing would touch how jarring this was to hear for the first time, and every single track pays off his insane experimental ideals. When this album reaches its closing track, “That Feel,” you get hit with a choir of every voice Tom has used in the last two decades, making this truly his career-defining work. While this isn’t my absolute favorite Tom Waits album, this was without a doubt the high point of his artistic expression.
(reddit.com/r/tomwaits/comments/199us02/review_13_bone_machine_1992/?rdt=48589)