On paper, Tom Waits' two new albums, "Alice" and "Blood Money," don't look promising. Without yet listening to them and knowing they were originally written for European theater pieces staged by avant-garde director Robert Wilson, they prompt one of two reactions: Here is obviously another misguided attempt at high art like 1993's "The Black Rider," also done for Wilson; or, maybe this is merely a stall until Waits and his co-writer, Kathleen Brennan, can come up with a real album.
But the two records turn out to be the first thoroughly satisfying realizations of the musical ideas that Waits and Brennan started exploring on 1982's "Swordfishtrombones." The albums they've released since then have contained many excellent songs, but they could never quite dispel the notion that the Waits-Brennan musical partnership was a never-ending experiment, what with their use of pre-rock pop forms, rusty keyboards and kitchen-sink percussion, not to mention Waits' total reliance on the unattractive limits of his phlegmy vocal instrument.
These elements are still in evidence on the new records, but they have finally coalesced into a real style. "Alice," which is the score to a play about Lewis Carroll, is melodically assured and stuffed to the brim with compelling metaphors. "Blood Money," based on Georg Buchner's German modernist play "Woyzeck," is no less compelling for its angular cabaret music and deathly depressing themes.