Two new ones from Tom Waits and one combo-disc by the Supersuckers with Electric Frankenstein keep pre-alternative music alive.

Photo: The Supersuckers play smart, aggressive, unpolished counterpoint to Electric Frankenstein''s smart, aggressive, unpolished punkrock roar.

Tom Waits

Blood Money/Alice (Anti Records)

The voice of professional (and amateur) Bohemia for 30 years, this part Beat Gen folkie turned Pops Armstrong philosopher has rarely if ever made a misstep. Not for lack of taking chances or anything like that, Tom Waits'' outlook isn''t merely the distillation of a dozen American styles. It''s perhaps the most original, salient sound cooking in a world of safety and bean-counting. Immediately recognizable not just for his carcinomic gravel pit of a voice, but for his love of the archaic rumble of New Orleans meets Berlin meets Harlem, from, say 1910 to 1955, his very existence as a successful recording artist is a testimony to his greatest gift, which is constructing funny stories and completely indelible if ancient melodies and arrangements. "Enigma" is too vague a term for the man, in fact there might just not be one in this language.

After a lengthy absence from record making, Waits has unleashed a pair of the knottiest, most deeply personal collections of fully-formed ruminations to date. When Waits is great (and he is on almost all of these 27 tracks), he sits atop a wacked-out, romantic-on-the-verge-of cynical (or vice versa) persona that is totally engaging. When he isn''t, as in his middle period when he was cutting tracks like "Heart Attack and Vine," he''s a self parody. Only on a handful of cuts does the master descend into an assumed character that''s too easy for him, like the circus geek-trib "Table Top Joe" from Alice.

Stylistically

similar, but wildly divergent in feel, these two discs are separated by mood. Blood Money is cranky and loaded with exegeses on the sad state of man, especially on the kick-off "Misery Is The River of the World." Sure, there are reflective and touching numbers on this disc, especially on the elegaic "Coney Island Baby" (not a cover of the Lou Reed song), but for the most part, this is observed and not lived.

Alice is a moose of a different hue, though. Tender and funny, it''s much more the work of an older gent getting fuzzy round the edges but hardly soft or drowning in sentiment. With hilarious goofing on German cabaret like "Kommienezupadt" to the West Side Story copped melody of "Fish and Bird" to the tinny, back to 1915-sounding instrumental that closes the disc, the gamut is run and run beautifully.

The soundtrack to a thousand late nights and coffeehouses, with waddling Bari saxes and twinkling pianos and vibes and lightly brushed traps and stand-up basses rumbling, this is the kind of updated jazz-based stuff that aspiring dreamers driving cabs or waiting tables feel is their blood, Waits'' music is even more necessary now than it was in the dreary and souless mid ''70s, when he first appeared as the bard of the Tropicana Motel in West Hollywood. Grown up all right not wrong with more to say after fifty than twenty five, Tom Waits is one of a kind and this pair of aces is the living proof. Better with age and don''t you ever forget it!

Supersuckers and Electric Frankenstein

Splitsville (The Music Cartel)

As was the case with Rancid and NOFX, these long-time touring punk units figured that the shorty EP was dead and that combining their two fan bases with this nice piece of full-length bait was a good trick. It is. Instead of larding two CD''s with throwaway nonsense, they save their best assorted guitar hammering and go at each other in this digital cage-match in a sort of friendly battle of the bands.

The Supersuckers are a little more rootsy, bar-bandish roar; E. Frankenstein, more snotty punk in the vein of the Dead Boys. But there isn''t that much to seperate them, which is why when they do each other''s songs (one a piece), it isn''t a stretch. Both bands are three chords and heavy riff underneath the chorus veterans and they''re damned good at it as well. Frankenstein has come up with the better gear on this outing, their first three (of only five) songs are total fury and howl and demand a drunken singalong, the Suckers are a little more restrained and only really hit the mark on the acoustic cover of E. Frankenstein''s "Teenage Shutdown."

You love the good ole punk blare and this will sate your appetite. You hate it, well, don''t even consider this capable genre exercise from these experts. Got it