In his latest album, Bob Dylan once again interprets, in his own slightly ironic and yet lovingly respectful way, standards that Sinatra made famous. This is one of those moments when it feels like he's treading water, or perhaps allowing himself to gently sink into sad-eyed resignation, rather than break unexpected new ground as he's periodically done over the decades.
There is nothing much really to distinguish Fallen Angels from Shadows in the Night, almost as if the two were parts of a double album. The honeyed tone of the pedal steel, the gentle lull of a standup bass, and a great deal of subtle brushwork on the drums provide a warm – at time almost cloying – embrace for the master’s voice. As with the previous album, the bluesy rasp of Dylan’s earlier "senior" albums has given way to a crooner’s softness, albeit a silky warmth that's tempered by echoes of the young rebel’s characteristic Hank Williams whine.
It’s hardly surprising that Zimmy, our rebel saint, should have swung all through his life from harsh visionary statements of dissent and radical fury to something distinctly more sentimental. There is a continuity in these homages to Ol’ Blue Eyes with the country-style sweetness of Nashville Skyline, just as the songs of Tempest hark back to the underworld dreams of Blonde on Blonde. Rebellion is born of a romantic take on life and Bob Dylan’s appeal has always drawn on this seemingly contradictory connection: things as they might be imagined, rather than how they are in the cold light of materialist day.
This feels a little like more of the same, but the same is so much more than most. Each song is a jewel, lovingly crafted, and redolent with a sense that a lifelong yearning has worn itself down, that things are lazily winding down to a melancholy end.
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