Bob Dylan and the Band – Before the Flood

| xeyeti

Here’s another old album review from the dark, dark ages of 2004.

Before the Flood is a collection of cuts from a 1974 tour that Bob Dylan and the Band–both coming off mediocre albums–put on to recapture their audience’s attention. And damn did it ever work.

The Dylan cuts here seem as if they were performed by a man and a band possessed. He tears through familiar tunes in new arrangements and new settings, completely altering familiar songs until they were barely recognizable. And the songs that were recognizable were still so different and alien, the audience barely knew how to react.

That being said, the reinterpretations are phenomenal. Dylan has always made an effort to defy his audience’s expectations, and by the mid-’70s, they’d finally come to appreciate this fact and to embrace it. The roar of the crowd on the double album makes it clear that Dylan’s fans still love him and his music, however he may twist it and change it.

The Band’s tunes, which mostly appear in the middle of the set, are a brief respite from the storm. There are no surprises here–The Band play things pretty straight, giving close reads of some of their best-known tunes, including “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down,” and “Stage Fright” on disc one, and “The Weight” on disc two. This straight-forward work by The Band on their original tunes actually works to the album’s advantage, though, as it provides a baseline against which to compare and interpret Dylan’s radical reworkings.

Dylan’s song selection stuck mostly to older, more established tunes from his first six or seven albums. Tunes such as “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Lay Lady Lay,” “Blowing in the Wind” (the album’s closer, in a very different version from the original solo acoustic), and numerous others seemed obvious and well-loved choices, but some of the tunes Dylan played were outside of expectations. Including “Ballad of a Thin Man” and “Highway 61 Revisited” from Highway 61 Revisited, and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” (played by Dylan solo acoustic at a breakneck speed) kept things even more varied and unpredictable.

Before the Flood captures Dylan and The Band at a performance ability peak, and presents them as a force of nature that tore through songs, the audience, and expectations. The results are phenomenal and worth listening to, and the album rivals any of the recent excellent Bootleg Series live shows. The record is a must-have for anyone who values the work of Dylan or The Band.

Bob Dylan – Tempest

| xeyeti

I am, as even a cursory glance at this blog will readily prove, a pretty damn big Dylan fan. And when I heard he was putting out another album, I was – as is to be expected – pretty damn excited. And honestly, the album is pretty great. It’s got some solid songs on it, Dylan’s voice is in fine (albeit raspy, gravely) form, and I enjoyed it from beginning until almost the end. But…

Well, it doesn’t honestly grab me, y’know? Usually, with a Dylan album, I want to start it over again right after it finishes. That…didn’t happen here. This is an excellent album, but it’s an album I feel like I’ve already heard three times before.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s plenty of great stuff to be mined from the styles Dylan’s been working in since Love and Theft (still my favorite Dylan record of the past thirty years), but it feels like the always-restless Dylan is just spinning his wheels here. Dylan and his band still do their thing with skill and even finesse, but there’s nothing here he hasn’t already done before. There are no surprises, no sudden detours in an unexpected direction (either lyrically or sonically), and honestly, it’s just not what I was hoping for.

The positive side, though, is that if you haven’t heard anything by Dylan in the past ten or twelve years, this album will feel pretty fresh to you. And really, the songs are generally quite good. Things start off well with “Duquesne Whistle,” an old-fashioned train song done in an old fashioned style. The subtle steel guitar work is reminiscent of Hank Williams, Sr., which is never a bad thing. “Early Roman Kings” borrows the riff from “Mannish Boy,” but does it on accordion (which isn’t a surprise at all if you’ve heard Together Through Life, but it fits as though there’s never been any other way to play it). “Pay In Blood” is one of Dylan’s darker comic songs, featuring the recurring line “I’ve paid in blood, but it’s not my own.” Other songs, such as “Soon After Midnight” and “Narrow Way,” work very well, and the first half of the album is pretty fantastic.

The second half, though, is bogged down by the last two tracks: the sprawling, lethargic title track, a story song about the sinking of the Titanic that does nothing new or interesting with the topic, and the album’s closer, “Roll on John,” a tribute to John Lennon that borrows lyrics from several of Lennon’s own songs and feels about thirty years too late. They’re both duds, falling quite flat, and they bring the end of the record down considerably.

Ultimately, Tempest isn’t going to win any new converts to the Cult of Dylan. It’s good, but there’s really nothing to distinguish it from the three albums that came before. While I can’t fault Dylan for pursuing the styles and themes he wants to (it’s led to same damn fine music over the years), I’m starting to have a tough time following him down the path.