It's been a roller coaster ride this last ten years worth of recordings. The nadir of Down In The Groove, the sparkling high of Oh Mercy, followed by the nagging feeling that the brilliance of that record might have been a last hurrah for Dylan's creativity as the below-par Under The Red Sky was followed by two all-covers LPs. Had Dylan's muse disappeared for good?
No. It hadn't.
According to the man himself, it wasn't that his muse had deserted him, it was just that she was spending more time away from home. Whereas, before, inspiration would come in a flood, as the years went on "once in a while, the odd song will
come to me like a bulldog at the garden gate and demand to be written.
But most of them are rejected out of my mind right away."
Well, if that bulldog had stopped yapping for the previous two (one could argue, three) LPs, it had started to cause one hell of a disturbance again. With Time Out of Mind, Dylan is back at the top of his game. The songwriting on display here is of the highest order. There is not a duff track (I'm not completely sold on Can't Wait but that's the worst I can say). He may not be breaking much new ground any more but no matter, this is a craftsman at work. Anyway, breaking new ground is usually the young man's game; finesse is where the old man excels.
We start with Love Sick. A wonderful, downbeat, plaintive song. Echoes of Most Of The Time, without the pretence of optimism.
I’m sick of love; I wish I’d never met you
I’m sick of love; I’m trying to forget you
I’m sick of love; I’m trying to forget you
Dirt Road Blues follows. One of those twelve bar blues numbers that Dylan is beginning to specialise in. You never feel he is particularly stretching himself on songs like these but they are enjoyable none the less.
The LP really starts to kick in now. Standing In The Doorway (a beautifully mournful country-blues number), Trying To Get To Heaven (a superb vocal performance), Make You Feel My Love (the simplest of love songs) and Not Dark Yet (a sumptuous musing) all particularly outstanding.
Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
What is notable is how lyrically downbeat the entire album is. These are songs of heartbreak and self-doubt. From Don't Think Twice through Blood On The Tracks to Most Of The Time, perhaps Dylan is at his musical best when down in the dumps.
The LP finishes with Highlands; a glorious ramble of a song that only Dylan can do this well. Clocking in at over sixteen minutes and essentially one-riff, it wanders from town to town, takes a diversion to detail in length a conversation with a waitress and still has time to report crossing the road to avoid a mangy dog. Much like the Knocked Out Loaded track Brownville Girl, this should not work yet it somehow does. It's Dylan's charm that takes such a hodgepodge of elements and turns out a great ending to an album of top-draw songwriting.
Yet, for all that, I don't think this is as good as Oh Mercy. Stop me if you've heard this one before but it's the production that's the problem. I thought Daniel Lanois did a top-notch job on Oh Mercy and - up to this point at least - Dylan has produced his strongest recordings when he has a producer to reign him in. It is a shame, then, that on this record Lanois' production too often seems to get in the way of the songs rather than let them breathe in the way he did on Oh Mercy.
For starters, on most of the tracks, there is just too much going on. It's not a Spector-esque wall of sound, it's not the complete muddle of Street Legal, it is just... there seems to be too much of everything but not enough of one thing. You dig? Listen to something like the intro to Million Miles or Standing In the Doorway (in fact any track other than Make You Feel My Love) and there seems to be two of everything, guitars, keyboards, pedal steel, drums noodling away in the background, each doing their own thing. None of them stand out, nothing takes the lead to carry a melody. They are all just there doing stuff.
I also don't like what he's done to Bob's voice. People with more expertise than me will be able to say what that is plastered all over his vocal track - echo? reverb? compression? - but whatever it is, on too many tracks, it's like listening to Dylan with cotton wool shoved in your ear. The nuances of his delivery gets lost.
I don't want to over-egg this particular pudding; this is not a disaster, the production doesn't ruin the LP or prevent this from coming across as a collection of some wonderful songs. This is still a very very good album. But it does distract and that is annoying.
Never mind. Dylan is back on form and that is reason to celebrate.
Out of five?
Four and three-quarters
Favourite track?
Not Dark Yet
Next up?
"Love And Theft" 
