Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour, which began in the late ’80s during the bard’s creative down years, was halted when the pandemic hit. Dylan might’ve been forced to stop rambling, but he would not stop creating. He set up shop in Santa Monica, and, over the course of seven days in 2021, with the help of filmmaker Alma Har’el, Shadow Kingdom was conjured up. Shadow Kingdom, a concert film shot in black and white, in which Dylan rearranges 13 of his classic songs, premiered on veeps.com with little publicity. It was a strange and beautiful performance, the musical shadow known as Bob Dylan blessing his fans with an unforeseen gift during those awful pandemic days. He disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared, leaving behind the only thing that’s ever mattered to him: the songs. Two years later, the Shadow Kingdom recording has been released as Dylan’s 40th studio album.
Shadow Kingdom, consisting of selections from Dylan’s early to mid-career work, will please aficionados and newcomers alike. It’s an accessible record for those new to Dylan while offering Dylanologists new textures and lyrical wrinkles to obsess over. Unlike Dylan’s rollicking late-career blues recordings, it’s devoid of percussion, and the backing band isn’t dragging Dylan along but gliding alongside. This is Dylan in Sinatra crooner mode with the occasional blues growl to spice things up.
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