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While there is nothing new on Alice, the songs he develops are well-structured, elegant and as bawl-worthy as ever.
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Waits' voice has always been an acquired taste, but those on the bus will appreciate the way he throws himself into every track as if haunting the characters like some sort of lunatic guardian narrator.
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The sheer melodic gorgeousness of the finest songs here make Alice the pick of Waits's new matched set.
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Tom Waits has never made an album quite like Alice before.
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It’s a shimmering, mournful gem.
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Some tracks are as disconnected as a David Lynch film, but no one does misery like this neo-blues hollerer.
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The WireThe sense of loss and longing becomes so physical at points that rather than respond, it's simpler to go with it until the ride ends in a drained silence. [#219, p.72]
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While the rest of pop culture infantilizes itself with cussing puppets and manufactured bands who willfully dangle like marionettes, Waits is serving up vintage brittle fusion and somehow breaking the law of diminishing returns. [Review of both Alice and Blood Money]
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The album's songs do not attack you with bombast but rather smother you in a slow burn, like gathering frost suffocating a mournful shut-in.
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I defy you to find a more elegantly shambolic, soulfully homespun and, indeed, heartfelt album than this.
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Heartbreakingly delicate even on the up-tempo numbers, Alice contains some of Waits' career's most tender moments.
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The melodies on Alice are easily the most direct Waits has written since Blue Valentine, but are more elegant than even those found on Foreign Affairs or Black Rider.
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UncutWaits does nothing predictable here, and the structure of even the most forlorn tear-jerker is ambitious and avant-something-or-other. [Co-Album Of The Month, June 2002, p.106]
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Waits' ravaged voice surrendered all pretensions to melody ages ago; his throat is now pure theater, a weapon of pictorial emphasis and raw honesty.
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Q MagazineIts woozy title track, oddly sideways lyrics and often meditative vibe make it a strangely gorgeous and graceful work. [May 2002, p.114]
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Entertainment WeeklyYou'd be hard-pressed to find sounds this spookily evocative anywhere outside the grooves of scratchy old 78s. [Applies to both 'Alice' and 'Blood Money,' 10 May 2002, p.80]
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'Alice' finds the twisted surrealisms of Lewis Carroll's relationship with Alice Liddell offering both refuge and escape for the usual Waits suspects: vagabonds, low-lifes and beautiful lunatics.
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Alternative PressAlice is unique within Waits' unique discography, and it may be his most fully realized work. [Jul 2002, p.96]
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MojoVaporous, layered, beautifully evocative, with moments of discordant madness. [Co-Album Of The Month [with 'Blood Money'], May 2002, p.94]
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BlenderAfter decades, Waits's theater of musical cruelty is familiar stuff. But the old dog's tricks still have bite. [Applies to both Alice and Blood Money, Jun/Jul 2002, p.111]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 44 out of 49
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Mixed: 1 out of 49
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Negative: 4 out of 49
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RichardPDec 2, 2006Simply the greatest and most moving album i have ever had the pleasure to listen to.
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markNov 30, 2006
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DanielTMay 22, 2006