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Kitty EmpireSunday August 27, 2006The Observer
Bob Dylan Modern Times (Columbia)
It becomes wearisome, the build-up to an album such as Bob Dylan's 44th, Modern Times. Men of a certain age become unaccountably twitchy, as though premenstrual, bandying about phrases such as 'Dylan's most anticipated album since 1975's Blood on the Tracks'. The recent upsurge in all things Zim - last year's No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese's docu-homage; 2004's volume of autobiography, Chronicles - replayed some of Dylan's purplest periods, re-establishing his status as the guy who gave American popular music gravitas. A couple of decent latter-day albums, 1997's Time Out of Mind and 2001's Love and Theft, added to the hope that Dylan may yet claw back more of his antic crackle.
It's a relief to report that an hour spent with Modern Times passes tantalisingly swiftly. The superlative final sally, 'Ain't Talkin', does what all last tracks should do: make you want to hear the whole thing again. It's a lengthy, mysterious blues-noir; virtually magic-realist in places. Dylan's nasal rumble tosses out gnomic couplets with bile and authority - like it, or he, still matter. It's worth the price of the CD alone. Not that Dylan thinks too much of CDs, as a recent gripe to Rolling Stone about modern production techniques attests.
'Ain't Talkin' shares top billing with 'Workingman's Blues #2'. It's been a good while since Dylan ached for the common man, if this most Machiavellian of bards ever did. But the song - the title of which nods to a Merle Haggard tune from 1969 - reveals a series of compelling hard-times vignettes. The fact that any of them could be drawn from Depression-era reportage points up the archness of the album's title (which could, in fact, refer to the Charlie Chaplin film of the same name). The only contemporary flicker is a passing, mischievous mention of R&B singer Alicia Keys.
Accustomed as we are to sifting through the chicken guts of Dylanic utterance, it wouldn't be hard to miss the chief pleasure of this record. It was recorded with Dylan's well-honed touring band, and their intuitive, unforced musicianship gives Modern Times a charmed fluency, lubricating even the more peculiar whimsies. The Thirties dinner-dance twinkle of 'Beyond the Horizon' is half Disney, half Dante. In his unlikeliest guise yet, the lizard-skinned former hipster pines for some perfect, beloved Beatrice-figure as cartoon palms sway behind him.
Most reviewers haven't had the privilege of hearing Modern Times twice. Time will reveal more detail, like the barely discernible guitar 'prink' on 'Rollin' and Tumblin', the album's third peak. Time will tell, too, whether Modern Times really is the equal of albums such as Blood on the Tracks. For now, it's safe to say that Dylan feels electric again.
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/observer/story/0,,1859132,00.html#article_continue
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