TheBig3

To be up-front, before giving this album its lengthy and time consuming I didn't think much of it. And the reason its review is so late in coming is really two reasons:

1. I didn't listen to it much prior so I hadn't had months upon years of thoughts about it

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2. I wanted to review it fairly. Many posters in this thread alone gave it moderate to glowing reviews and I didn't want to pan it on my lack of listening.

But one of the issues I had to reconcile as well was that this is still an album review coming from me - not an empirical review - and at the end of the day I need to sleep peacefully with what I've written.

Heart Attack & Vine is still, to me anyhow, an album lost in time. Adrift in an ocean full of bigger albums, better songs, and stations that Waits landed on. Because of this, the album is better seen as a journey than any sort of stance in the musical landscape.

Its two-faced. Which is generally true of his entire Catalog. His wife Katherine is quote as saying its "Grim Reapers and Grand Weepers." Riffing on that review, HA&V is Grand Weepers and Blackout Drunks. If I need a sentence to review this album it would be...

Of the 9 songs, it would break down something like this

A) Heartattack and Vine
A) In Shade
B) Saving All My Love For You
A) Downtown
B) Jersey Girl
A) 'til the Money Runs Out
B) On the Nickel
A) Mr. Siegal
B) Ruby's Arms

The A's are the drunks, the B's are the weepers. And they each have their appealing attributes but like some of the lesser songs on Closing Time, the B's show their Age. "Saving All My Love" is probably the worst song on here if only because of its 70's style string sections and, of the B's its not the heaviest hitter.

The other three are "On the Nickle" and "Ruby's Arms" which have enough vocal grit and lyrical brilliance to carry through the day; The Third is "Jersey Girl" which is the least Waits song ever, but simultaneously brilliant. Theres a reason Springsteen covered it, and its not just because he's from the Garden State.

You can tell, looking backward, that this was the start of an amazing style Waits will employ for much of his career, but you also would note that this isn't the best he's done.

The A's (the drunks) on the other hand are Waits at his transitional best. This is neither Closing Time nor Swordfish Trombones but while he's going from the former to the latter, he rides a Hammond B3 to amazing results.

This isn't the blues because its too happy, and thats only because its drank away its problems. These 5 songs are the film you wake up with on your skin the next day when you're hung over in a room you know isn't yours. Its the heat of sin in the moment you're going in for the kill, its not the thoughts of a drunk man, its the soundtrack to his swagger.

The title track is what everyone should play as they drive out of their neighborhood for a forgotten weekend in some far off destination you aren't bringing your wife on. And "'til the money runs out" is what the dice roll to in side alley gambling scams. This album is filthy and it could really only take place in two places in America - Las Vegas & New Orleans. But the absolute killer is "Mr. Siegal." Rollicking piano, a guitar that cuts like that first shot of whiskey at 11 am.

While I still can't say this is the first or third Waits album you should pick up, you should give it a listen before you rule it out. There isn't a field to harvest from lyrically here, neither is there the wild experimentation musically that Waits is known for, this album is the best friend you're going to have when you're showing off the gutter the next morning.

Must Hear:

1. Mr. Siegal
2. Jersey Girl
3. Heartattack & Vine
4. Ruby's Arms.

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