Columbia Records, 2012
Four stars
Of the living legends still making music, none have created a legacy as
remarkable, as challenging, and as endlessly rewarding as Bob Dylan.
Since releasing his debut in 1961, Dylan has recorded 35 studio albums,
altered the boundaries of both folk music and rock 'n' roll, won a
Pulitzer Prize for his lyrical prowess, been the subject of numerous
fascinating (and baffling) accounts, both in writing and on film, and
morphed his sound, voice, and writing style on countless occasions.
Along the way, he's made almost as many disappointments or duds as he
has classics, but as of late, he's settled into a groove that it's hard
to find much fault with. Ever since he entered his "late career
renaissance" with 1997's Time out of Mind, Dylan’s output has
been solid and occasionally brilliant. It’s also been relatively safe,
resting mostly within a comfortable blues-rock tradition that suits his
increasingly raspy voice incredibly well.
His 35th album, evocatively entitled Tempest, doesn’t look or sound too different on the surface. Songs like “Early Roman Kings” and the incendiary “Narrow Way” offer up the same kind of enjoyable yet derivative blues-rock exercises that have made up the bulk of Dylan’s last few albums. But as one delves further into the dense lyrical matter of these songs, or into the musical sweep of the album’s finest moments, they will find a collection that feels remarkably unsettling and resoundingly final. Rolling Stone called it Dylan’s darkest album to date, and the assessment isn’t far off the mark. The songs on Tempest are deeply mournful, saturated with death, doom, and defeat. “Long and Wasted Years” plays like a sequel to Time out of Mind’s masterful “Not Dark Yet,” from the warm, muggy instrumental atmosphere to its minimalist musical structure and meandering lyrical form. “We cried on a cold and frosty morn, we cried because our souls were torn/So much for tears, so much for these long and wasted years,” Dylan growls at the song’s conclusion. He sounds resilient, even in the face of regret and death, and that resilience is one of Tempest’s most palpable themes, as well as its greatest strength.
But while “Long and Wasted Years” may show off the album’s triumphs,
from the aforementioned themes to Dylan’s strangely wry sense of irony,
and especially to the warm and full-bodied musical backdrop (the band is
in top form here, adding violins, banjos, mandolins, and steel guitars
as the texture requires), it is also a textbook example of its greatest
drawback. “Meandering" is a term that could be applied to much of
Dylan’s work, even in his heyday. It’s that excessive aspect of his
songwriting, along with his rough and unorthodox vocal style, that makes
his music divisive for many listeners. And Dylan’s excesses are alive
and well here: the average song length is just shy of seven minutes, and
too many of them overstay their welcomes. There are exceptions of
course: sometimes, Dylan’s strophic manner of songwriting works
perfectly, like on the rollicking first single and album opener that is
“Duquesne Whistle,” or with the haunting murder tale that he constructs
on “Tin Angel.” Elsewhere, Dylan shows that he is capable of being
concise, like with the gorgeous romantic sweep of “Soon After Midnight,”
or the dusky guitar-driven “Pay in Blood," but occasionally, he just
sounds like a broken record. Take the lurching, interminable weak point
that is “Scarlet Town,” or even the centerpiece title track, which
clocks in at just under 14 minutes. It goes on for twice as long as it
should but it's still a vintage Dylan ballad that needs to be heard. A
fiddle intro lends the song a lovely Irish lilt, and Dylan’s lyrical
narrative – all 45 verses of it – gives the Titanic disaster the epic
folk legend it deserves...right down to a referential appearance from
Leonardo DiCaprio. It sounds like the kind of song Dylan would have
written decades ago, more reminiscent of his folk-music roots than his
rock ‘n’ roll revolution or his latter-day blues, and the return-to-form
is a welcome change of pace. It’s too long, but that’s part of the
form.
When Dylan announced the name of this record, many speculated that it
was a curtain call. After all, Shakespeare’s final play bore the title The Tempest,
and it seemed that, if the rock ‘n’ roll poet was going to go out on
his own terms, he might as well do it in a similar fashion to the
legendary artist with whom he shares the most in common. Dylan was the
first to point out the lack of the word “the” in his own work, stating
that its absence resulted in two different titles and no connection
between them, but throughout, Tempest sounds like a man who is
about ready to pull his last job. If that’s the case, then the gorgeous
closer that is “Roll on John” functions as the perfect finale. “I heard
the news today, oh boy/They hauled your ship up on the shore/Now the
city’s gone dark, there is no more joy/They tore the heart right out and
cut it to the core,” Dylan sings, over a ringing organ that evokes
church scenes, and in the same ragged, Tom Waits-esque vocal style that
has marked every line of the record. He doesn’t sound tired: he doesn’t
sound broken or used up or even particularly old, but he does give off
the air that he knows something we don’t. It’s in the manner that he
references and borrows from old Beatles songs without pause, in the
potentially parodic way that he eulogizes a man who has been dead for
almost 32 years; and it’s certainly there in the music, a simple wistful
melody which recalls that moment in a film right before the credits
roll. If Tempest is the last piece of Dylan’s untouchable legacy,
then it’s almost the perfect cap, one last curveball from rock ‘n’
roll’s most uncompromising figure. If it’s not, if he still has a few
more surprises left in him, then it’s still his best record since Love and Theft.
Coming along 11 years to the day after that record hit the streets, 11
years after it coincided with the most tragic day in recent American
history, it seems like that might have been the point. But you can never
really know with Bob Dylan.
His 35th album, evocatively entitled Tempest, doesn’t look or sound too different on the surface. Songs like “Early Roman Kings” and the incendiary “Narrow Way” offer up the same kind of enjoyable yet derivative blues-rock exercises that have made up the bulk of Dylan’s last few albums. But as one delves further into the dense lyrical matter of these songs, or into the musical sweep of the album’s finest moments, they will find a collection that feels remarkably unsettling and resoundingly final. Rolling Stone called it Dylan’s darkest album to date, and the assessment isn’t far off the mark. The songs on Tempest are deeply mournful, saturated with death, doom, and defeat. “Long and Wasted Years” plays like a sequel to Time out of Mind’s masterful “Not Dark Yet,” from the warm, muggy instrumental atmosphere to its minimalist musical structure and meandering lyrical form. “We cried on a cold and frosty morn, we cried because our souls were torn/So much for tears, so much for these long and wasted years,” Dylan growls at the song’s conclusion. He sounds resilient, even in the face of regret and death, and that resilience is one of Tempest’s most palpable themes, as well as its greatest strength.
But while “Long and Wasted Years” may show off the album’s triumphs,
from the aforementioned themes to Dylan’s strangely wry sense of irony,
and especially to the warm and full-bodied musical backdrop (the band is
in top form here, adding violins, banjos, mandolins, and steel guitars
as the texture requires), it is also a textbook example of its greatest
drawback. “Meandering" is a term that could be applied to much of
Dylan’s work, even in his heyday. It’s that excessive aspect of his
songwriting, along with his rough and unorthodox vocal style, that makes
his music divisive for many listeners. And Dylan’s excesses are alive
and well here: the average song length is just shy of seven minutes, and
too many of them overstay their welcomes. There are exceptions of
course: sometimes, Dylan’s strophic manner of songwriting works
perfectly, like on the rollicking first single and album opener that is
“Duquesne Whistle,” or with the haunting murder tale that he constructs
on “Tin Angel.” Elsewhere, Dylan shows that he is capable of being
concise, like with the gorgeous romantic sweep of “Soon After Midnight,”
or the dusky guitar-driven “Pay in Blood," but occasionally, he just
sounds like a broken record. Take the lurching, interminable weak point
that is “Scarlet Town,” or even the centerpiece title track, which
clocks in at just under 14 minutes. It goes on for twice as long as it
should but it's still a vintage Dylan ballad that needs to be heard. A
fiddle intro lends the song a lovely Irish lilt, and Dylan’s lyrical
narrative – all 45 verses of it – gives the Titanic disaster the epic
folk legend it deserves...right down to a referential appearance from
Leonardo DiCaprio. It sounds like the kind of song Dylan would have
written decades ago, more reminiscent of his folk-music roots than his
rock ‘n’ roll revolution or his latter-day blues, and the return-to-form
is a welcome change of pace. It’s too long, but that’s part of the
form. 
When Dylan announced the name of this record, many speculated that it
was a curtain call. After all, Shakespeare’s final play bore the title The Tempest,
and it seemed that, if the rock ‘n’ roll poet was going to go out on
his own terms, he might as well do it in a similar fashion to the
legendary artist with whom he shares the most in common. Dylan was the
first to point out the lack of the word “the” in his own work, stating
that its absence resulted in two different titles and no connection
between them, but throughout, Tempest sounds like a man who is
about ready to pull his last job. If that’s the case, then the gorgeous
closer that is “Roll on John” functions as the perfect finale. “I heard
the news today, oh boy/They hauled your ship up on the shore/Now the
city’s gone dark, there is no more joy/They tore the heart right out and
cut it to the core,” Dylan sings, over a ringing organ that evokes
church scenes, and in the same ragged, Tom Waits-esque vocal style that
has marked every line of the record. He doesn’t sound tired: he doesn’t
sound broken or used up or even particularly old, but he does give off
the air that he knows something we don’t. It’s in the manner that he
references and borrows from old Beatles songs without pause, in the
potentially parodic way that he eulogizes a man who has been dead for
almost 32 years; and it’s certainly there in the music, a simple wistful
melody which recalls that moment in a film right before the credits
roll. If Tempest is the last piece of Dylan’s untouchable legacy,
then it’s almost the perfect cap, one last curveball from rock ‘n’
roll’s most uncompromising figure. If it’s not, if he still has a few
more surprises left in him, then it’s still his best record since Love and Theft.
Coming along 11 years to the day after that record hit the streets, 11
years after it coincided with the most tragic day in recent American
history, it seems like that might have been the point. But you can never
really know with Bob Dylan.
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