Shadow Kingdom (2023)
1. When I Paint My Masterpiece
2. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)
3. Queen Jane Approximately
4. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
5. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
6. Tombstone Blues
7. To Be Alone with You
8. What Was it You Wanted
9. Forever Young
10. Pledging My Time
11. The Wicked Messenger
12. Watching the River Flow
13. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
14. Sierra’s Theme
By now, it should surprise no one that Bob Dylan—well into his eighth decade—continues to defy expectations by sidestepping them entirely. This latest release, an unassuming and loosely assembled collection of reinterpretations from his mid-career golden era (circa 1965–1975), arrives without pretense, and with even less polish. Sparse in instrumentation—acoustic guitar, harmonica, occasional accordion, and flickers of electric guitar—it is less an album in the conventional sense than an ambient drift through Dylan’s private musical parlor.
There is a curious intimacy to the proceedings. The songs are familiar, certainly, but not reverently treated. Dylan has long made a habit of reshaping his past catalog for the moment at hand, and here he does so again with characteristic disregard for strict fidelity. The effect is fragmentary—songs bleed into one another, verses blur, and tempos settle into a weary, unhurried lilt. It is music without ceremony, and very nearly without audience.
The listening experience evokes something closer to a found moment than a performance: imagine a midafternoon at a county fair, where a lone troubadour plays to a wandering, inattentive crowd, more interested in lemonade and shade than legacy. The singer may be legendary, but here he is merely passing time—though, one suspects, entirely on his own terms.
It is neither a great record nor a poor one; it is simply another curious turn in the endless Dylan labyrinth. There is, at the close, an instrumental titled Sierra’s Theme—a gentle closer whose origins remain unclear. Perhaps it is a cover, or perhaps not. Like much of Dylan’s recent work, it arrives without annotation, content to be exactly what it is: a mood, a texture, a fading light.
Whether or not one returns to this collection is beside the point. Dylan, as ever, does not ask for your approval—only your patience.
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