13 ferocious and sophisticated tracks, Hadreas and his collaborators blow through church music, make out music, an array of the gothier radio popular formats, art pop, krautrock, queer soul, the RCA Studio B sound, and then also collect some of the sound
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.