Tom Waits The Black Rider

4 Stars - Very Good - "...Waits' work has grown consistently stronger, more ambitious and less self-conscious...."
Highly Recommended - "...Tom Waits has suddenly emerged to become the hardest-working epiglottis in show business....nothing like a pinch of hobo logic to spice up a successful marriage of high opera and low fidelity..."
"...[THE BLACK RIDER] showcases [Tom Wait's] penchant for disturbing mood music and grotesque sentiment..." - Rating: B
3 Stars - Good - "...[BLACK RIDER] is eclectic, bleak, funny, plain barmy in places and, at a couple of exquisite moments, as touching as anything Tom Waits has recorded..."
"...Roll up for ringside seats and prepare to be amazed, astounded and bedevilled. For this ringmaster has no living equal...."
Stereo Review (3/94, p.98) - Performance: Harrowing / Recording: Good - "...Waits mines instrumental sounds like the pipeline to the netherworld itself...his vocals sound drawn across broken glass and rusty nails, and filtered through bubbling blood...."
8 - Excellent - "...with records as challenging, tuneful and blackly comic as THE BLACK RIDER, Tom Waits threatens to come as close as anyone since Brecht to piecing together a cross-cultural jigsaw that doesn't fall apart..."