Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways - 8/10

I am going to start this album review with a confession. I was not excited at the prospect of a new Bob Dylan album.

Yes I know that many would consider it sacrilegious to doubt new material from an artist with the acclaim and tenure of Dylan. Yes I know that ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ is his first album of original material in eight years. And yes, I know that a new record from this long-standing statesman of music deserves trembles of anticipation. I just couldn’t bring myself to feel it.

I should make it clear from the outset that this is not because I am not a Dylan fan. In fact the opposite is true. I am a big fan of Dylan and, in particular, of his incredible and varied albums released in his heyday running from the early 1960’s and continuing throughout much of the 1970’s.

Like many music legends, Dylan has struggled throughout the latter stages of his career with inconsistency. Whilst he has displayed some incredible moments of talent, there have also been occasions of self-indulgence and, dare it be said, a lack of quality control on some of his more recent work.

In recent years one particular issue alienating many listeners has been his voice. Never famed for his singing, Dylan’s pipes were always an acquired taste but any lack of harmonic ability could always be charmed away by his incredible songwriting. On recent records (the majority of them covers albums seeing him re-interpret standards) his voice has morphed from his famous nasal wine to a rasp that closely resembles a broken chainsaw. I know it is only fair to point out that Dylan is in his seventies and that he, and his vocal cords, have spent a lifetime working hard on the road. It doesn’t however make for easy listening.

So, it was with reasonably limited expectations that I gave ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ its first spin. How delighted I was to have been proved wrong in my doubts. It is a strong album that finds Dylan on his finest form in years. He may be turning eighty next year, but it is clear that this old dog can still play new tricks.

Opener ‘I Contain Multitudes’ is a stirring ballad of self-reflection that finds him weighing up the complicated, and often conflicting, elements of his character. “I’m a man of contradictions I’m a man of many moods, I contain multitudes” he drawls whilst also comparing himself to historical and cultural figures as diverse as Edgar Allen Poe, Indiana Jones, William Blake and “those British bad boys the Rolling Stones”.

The balladry continues on the gentle creep of ‘I’ve Made my Mind to Give Myself Up to You’ and on the delicate introspection in ‘Mother of Muses’. These heartfelt reflections suit the Dylan of 2020 – a man looking back on his life with nostalgia and contemplation. Epic album closer – the seventeen minute long ‘Murder Most Foul’ –finds him poring over the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1962. He may be older, but here Dylan’s eyes seem just as sharp on detail as they were when he was writing his cutting social protest songs at the time of the assassination.

Always famed for his intricate and clever lyrics, the collection here is no disappointment for fans of Dylan’s penmanship. The record finds him veering between careful reflections of his own character and history, and clear intent – sometimes in the same sentence. “I’ll sell you down the river, I’ll put a price on your head, I sleep with life and death in the same bed” he sings on ‘I Contain Multitudes’.

And the voice! Dylan has changed his singing style many times over the years (perhaps most noticeably on 1969’s ‘Nashville Skyline’) and the listener will never be sure what they’ll get after some lacklustre results in recent years. It is a great delight to the ears then that here he adopts an easier style. Throughout the record he sings with a gentle growl which suits the collection of songs and their weary nostalgia perfectly.

Dylan was infamously hounded by his fans and stalwarts of the folk music scene when he went electric in the mid-sixties. We all know he went on to prove the doubters wrong, and it is a pleasant irony here that when he plugs in his six string the album really comes to life. ‘False Prophet’ is powered along by a raunchy rhythm and is as stinging lyrically and sonically as any of the tracks from ‘Highway 61 Revisited’. ‘Goodbye Jimmy Reed’ offers more cutting blues driven rock, whilst ‘Crossing the Rubicon’ finds Dylan sounding far more like a weary bluesman of old than the idealistic wide eyed minstrel of his early days.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but Dylan here silences any such doubters. Like many of his peers of legendary status, he refuses to sit still and remains brave enough to try new things and challenge his own status quo. ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ may have come too late into his career to ever sit alongside his truly legendary recordings but, have no doubt, this is a very strong album that will happily establish its place in the Dylan songbook.