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Joseph Henry Burnett is better known by his stage name of 'T Bone' and as a highly sought after producer of landmark albums such as Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's Raising Sand as well as for his work on the film soundtracks for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Walk the Line. He was most active as a solo artist in the 1980s, after which producing seemed to take up most of his time. Burnett's trademarks are cinematic production values, his sardonic, nasal, speak-singing vocals (which suggest a misanthropic John Lennon) an eclectic and inventive approach to American roots music and lyrics of withering cynicism and at times surreal force.
Tooth of Crime is the second record he's made since returning to solo work in 2006. Most of this new disc was actually written for a 1996 staging of Sam Shepard's play Tooth Of Crime (Second Chance), but shelved when Burnett decided it ''didn't seem like an album''.
The lightweight ditty The Slowdown is the only piece that approaches conventional 'musical' fare. The rest of the material is considerably darker, and when compared with his 1980 debut Truth Decay, not as melodic or accessible. One exception is the rather swooning Kill Zone, which was co-written with Roy Orbison and sounds like it. Anything I Say Can And Will Be Used Against You is the other obvious highlight, which comes across like a slow, twisted Tom Waits rewrite of the theme tune from the TV series, Get Smart.
The whole thing seethes with bluesy menace, greatly aided by Darrel Leonard's often-dissonant brass arrangements, Marc Ribot's atmospheric surf guitar twanging (think Twin Peaks) and Jim Keltner's masterfully lopsided drums. Sam Phillips croons alongside Burnett on Dope Island, but any romantic solace is undermined by the post-apocalyptic imagery of the lyrics, which teeter on the brink of melodrama here and on The Rat Age. It's this, and the emphasis on atmospherics rather than memorable tunes - especially on the last three tracks - that make it something to endure rather than enjoy, and also fuels the feeling that maybe there's still not quite a full album's worth of ideas here. --Jon Lusk
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Tooth of Crime is a series of songs for a Sam Shepard play of the same name. Shepard originally wrote the play in 1972 and subsequently produced a revised version in the nineties. Burnett likewise has been working on these songs for many years. The story concerns an aging washed up rock singer battling with a rival in `The Game'- a world of violent rock music(?!?) If the plot is opaque, it could hardly be said that the lyrics clarify matters. Nonetheless the bitter sardonic mood and dystopian futuristic setting are clear enough.
Although using many of the same players featured on the Burnett produced Krauss / Plant album `Raising Sand', `Tooth of Crime; could not be further from that album stylistically or in atmosphere. Where `Raising Sand' is warm and organic, `Tooth of Crime' is cold, dark and alienated. In many ways this sounds more like a Sam Phillips album than a T Bone Burnett album. Taking that as a reference point, imagine a Tom Waits soundtrack for Bladerunner and you won't be too far off. This is not easy listening: the songs are built for musical theatre of the art-house variety, rather than radio or dancehall, and as such often do not really stand alone. As a producer and arranger, Burnett is second to none, but here he assembles and deploys his musical forces to create a soundtrack that is nothing like a soundtrack in the conventional sense, being too angular and challenging to be the background for anything. Darkness pervades the songs from first to last. `People tell me I look like hell. Well I am hell...You're my friend, but I'm going to kill you.' Burnett intones on the opener, `Anything I say can and will be used against you'. And `Sweet Lullaby' which closes out the album is anything but: `Time is quit, look it in the eye. In blood we sit, in dark we die. Fare thee well, sweet lullaby'.
For fans it's good to have any new music from Burnett, but while interesting, it's hard to see this becoming a favourite.
Although using many of the same players featured on the Burnett produced Krauss / Plant album `Raising Sand', `Tooth of Crime; could not be further from that album stylistically or in atmosphere. Where `Raising Sand' is warm and organic, `Tooth of Crime' is cold, dark and alienated. In many ways this sounds more like a Sam Phillips album than a T Bone Burnett album. Taking that as a reference point, imagine a Tom Waits soundtrack for Bladerunner and you won't be too far off. This is not easy listening: the songs are built for musical theatre of the art-house variety, rather than radio or dancehall, and as such often do not really stand alone. As a producer and arranger, Burnett is second to none, but here he assembles and deploys his musical forces to create a soundtrack that is nothing like a soundtrack in the conventional sense, being too angular and challenging to be the background for anything. Darkness pervades the songs from first to last. `People tell me I look like hell. Well I am hell...You're my friend, but I'm going to kill you.' Burnett intones on the opener, `Anything I say can and will be used against you'. And `Sweet Lullaby' which closes out the album is anything but: `Time is quit, look it in the eye. In blood we sit, in dark we die. Fare thee well, sweet lullaby'.
For fans it's good to have any new music from Burnett, but while interesting, it's hard to see this becoming a favourite.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Some of us have been waiting for this album for many years. At long last it has now been released. Anybody who has been following T Bone's music since his very first album under the name J Henry Burnett, would expect something relatively different with every new album. This is once more the case. "Tooth of Crime" is certainly different from "Criminal Under My Own Hat", T Bone's previous album chronographically (Probably the closest link between the two is Burn This Building Down, a song from "Criminal"). Yet it is equally brilliant. Conceptually, as always, T Bone deals with deep issues and what are these days, difficult subjects. He has important things to say, steming from deeply held convictions. In this day in age, some of us are longing to hear the purity of this voice. If you are coming to this album through T Bone's work as a producer, you ought to be warned: T Bone as a producer simply produces excellent music and helps other musicians fulfil their potential. As a singer-songwriter, T Bone does something else that he knows equally well: He expresses himself with an unmatched level of integrity.
3 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I bought this on the back of seeing T Bone live with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss recently, where he was excellent. I found the album fairly tuneless, and difficult to get into. I had been expecting more conventional blues/rock, but this slipped into "experimental" and I couldn't recommend it, even after 4 or 5 listenings. I don't think there will be many more.
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