Zwischen der Veröffentlichung von Heartattack and Vine (1980) und »Swordfishtrombones« (1983) wechselte Tom Waits das Label und verwandelte sich von einem jazzbetonten Poeten/Crooner in etwas völlig Neues.
»Swordfishtrombones« markiert den Beginn einer offensichtlichen Trilogie, die Waits als Designer von Klanglandschaften hervortreten ließ (dies war das erste seiner Alben, das Waits selbst produzierte), mit einem Gesamtklang, der zu gleichen Teilen deutsches Kabarett, die Patina alter 78er und die sentimentale Kraft einer John McCormack-Ballade vermischt. Waits begann hier, seine Stimme auf außergewöhnliche Weise einzusetzen, vom Sideshow-Bellen in »Underground« bis zur Hustensirup-Belastung in »Swordfishtrombone«, und die Instrumentierung änderte sich mit ihm, mit einem neuen, von Harry Partch inspirierten Schlagzeug und Heilsarmee-Bläserarrangements. Im Nachhinein betrachtet, gab es Andeutungen dieses Sounds auf Heartattack und Vine, aber nichts bereitete die Fans auf dieses vollendete Meisterwerk vor.
Between the release of Heartattack and Vine in 1980 and Swordfishtrombones in 1983, Tom Waits got rid of his manager, his producer, and his record company. And he drastically altered a musical approach that had become as dependable as it was unexciting. Swordfishtrombones has none of the strings and much less of the piano work that Waits' previous albums had employed; instead, the dominant sounds on the record were low-pitched horns, bass instruments, and percussion, set in spare, close-miked arrangements (most of them by Waits) that sometimes were better described as "soundscapes." Lyrically, Waits' tales of the drunken and the lovelorn have been replaced by surreal accounts of people who burned down their homes and of Australian towns bypassed by the railroad -- a world (not just a neighborhood) of misfits now have his attention. The music can be primitive, moving to odd time signatures, while Waits alternately howls and wheezes in his gravelly bass voice. He seems to have moved on from Hoagy Carmichael and Louis Armstrong to Kurt Weill and Howlin' Wolf (as impersonated by Captain Beefheart). Waits seems to have had trouble interesting a record label in the album, which was cut 13 months before it was released, but when it appeared, rock critics predictably raved: after all, it sounded weird and it didn't have a chance of selling. Actually, it did make the bottom of the best-seller charts, like most of Waits' albums, and now that he was with a label based in Europe, even charted there. Artistically, Swordfishtrombones marked an evolution of which Waits had not seemed capable (though there were hints of this sound on his last two Asylum albums), and in career terms it reinvented him.
(by William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide)
Inselplatte #3 in Jahresliste 
Plattentipp 
#374 Virgin/Colin Larkin(2000)
#89 Rock Critics Choice(1987)
#24 Sounds(2009)
eins von 1001 Alben, die Ihr hören solltet, bevor das Leben vorbei ist! (2008)
eins von 100 Alben aus der Basis-Diskothek Rock und Pop von Uwe Schütte (Reclam, 2011) 
