Bob Dylan’s first studio album in almost five years went on sale in the United States today, with reviewers hailing the veteran rocker’s latest offering as the sign of an old master on a roll.
Modern Times includes 10 new songs by the legendary tunesmith, described by Rolling Stone magazine as “evenly divided between blues ready-mades, old-timey two-steps and stately marches full of prophecy.”
The magazine gave the new album a full five stars, declaring it Dylan’s “third straight masterwork,” while Blender magazine hailed it as “the third in a simultaneously startling and backward-looking series.”
“In sound and feel, Modern Times recalls the kind of music working bands would cut on the fly between gigs, a mixture of unique inventions and variations on hand-me-downs touched by the leader’s genius,” Rolling Stone said.
“This music is relaxed; it has nothing to prove. It is music of accumulated knowledge, it knows every move, anticipates every step before you take it.”
Dylan, producing himself for the second time running, “has captured the sound of tradition as an ever-present, a sound he’s been working on since his first album, in 1962,” it said.
The album, cut in New York earlier this year according to Columbia Records, also earned a top review from Billboard magazine, which described it as “enchanting” and “rife with homespun reflections on philosophy, religion and the never-ending quest for true love.”
The album’s title is likely a nod to Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 movie of the same name. “In both, a legendary entertainer does what he wants because nobody can stop him, and the world is better for it,” Blender said.
Dylan, who turned 65 in May, hit a return to form with the 1997 album Time out of Mind, followed up with Love and Theft in 2001.
He has shrugged off his advancing years, continuing on his so-called Never Ending Tour, taking on a new job as a radio DJ and publishing a selection of memoirs.
A reluctant voice for a disaffected generation who sought seclusion for most of his life, Dylan has opened up somewhat in recent years, appearing in a Martin Scorsese documentary and authorising a stage musical with his songs.
source:AFP
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