Bob Dylan, Tempest
Featured Album
At his most mortal, physically and lyrically
Eight minutes to detail love’s dissolution on “Ballad in Plain D”; 11 minutes to itemize a parade of inconsolable icons on “Desolation Row”; 11 on a Song of Solomon ode to his wife on “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”; another 11 on the murder of New York mobster Joey Gallo. Yet it’s on Bob Dylan’s 35th studio album that he lays out the biggest epic of his career, “Titanic,” a 14-minute, 45-verse, chorus-free Celtic waltz about the day that great ship went down. In Dylan’s expert hands, he floats between the tragedy as rendered by the Carter Family, Woody Guthrie and William & Versey Smith as well as James Cameron, meditating on death, fate, Leonardo DiCaprio, and the realization that “there is no understanding on the judgment of God’s hand.”
Tempest finds Dylan at his most mortal, both physically – his phlegmatic voice is gritty enough to abrade paint and out-carnie Tom Waits – and lyrically. Hundreds of dead bodies float in the ocean, the gunned-down John Lennon gets remembered on the maudlin “Roll On John,” while the noir of “Tin Angel” ends in a grisly murder-suicide.
Fittingly, his backing band kills. Powered by Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo’s accordion and guitarist Charlie Sexton, they navigate turn-of-the-century blues, folk, country-swing, and jazz. See how the “Mannish Boy” riff lurches to meet the conjunto accordion for a song about “Early Roman Kings.” It leaves Dylan free to prowl and growl, sinister and gallows-humored. When on the Stones-y “Pay in Blood,” he snarls out “the more I die the more I live,” he sounds like he’s got nothing but time.
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david.armstrongon September 22, 2012 at 10:12 am said: The song is called "Tempest," not "Titanic." It erodes any credibility in the reviewer when he gets such obvious and simple facts wrong. Especially a reviewer whose bio is so smug and tries so hard to wow us with the fact that he writes on animatronic bands and thai pop. What a genius. I wonder what facts he gets wrong in those reviews? -
slidewellon September 23, 2012 at 9:42 am said: I'm not going to pile on and take the crappy reviewer to task, but I have to say, despite the continued lyrical brilliance Dylan delivers, and Tempest has many superb moments, musically this has to be one of his weakest efforts. Now I know that may not be what most people are looking for from Bob, but these aren't so much songs, but more like aural wallpaper to hang his narratives on, sort of like '50's beat poetry with a band noodling in the background. OK, maybe not that bad, but his fine, high-powered band sounds like a fine sports car that never gets out of first gear. A few instrumental breaks would have gone a long way to make some of the long narratives less monotonous.
