Rating: * * * *
Bob Dylan doesn't exactly make easy-listening music, but although darkness lurks on this album there is something relaxed about most of these 10 songs. Certainly there is disconcerting moodiness (Forgetful Heart) and tension (My Wife's Home Town) but here Dylan and his tight band -
which includes Petty Heartbreaker Mike Campbell on guitar and Los Lobos' David Hildago on accordion - swing through the breezy Jolene (an original, not the Dolly Parton song) and even If You Ever Go To Houston with its menace and historical references to the Mexican War is delivered over a beer-sippin' barroom-jukebox groove.
As always Dylan makes musical reference to a broad cross-section of American (and beyond) music: Beyond Here Lies Nothing recalls Santana's Black Magic Woman; there's pre-rock R'n'B (Shake Shake Mama); and Hispanic music from the borderland (the beautifully world-weary but optimistic This Dream of You).
And again he pens ballads in which he suggests classic melodies from the 40s rather than actually singing them: Life is Hard with its vague suggestions of Hawaiian music, the leisurely I Feel A Change Comin' On. On such songs you sense Dylan is adding to his recent catalogue of similar ballads which will form a resource of lyrically intelligent songs for those who have the ears to hear - and perhaps reinterpret - them.
There is sarcastic wit here too: the lightweight closer is the up-tempo R'n'B country-rocker It's All Good, a wry observation of that cliche you hear everywhere, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary.
Predictably, some reviewers have dismissed this by saying it will be hailed by Dylan loyalists: it hasn't been actually; most find it interesting, enjoyable and even pleasant - but lacking the resonance of its predecessor, the superb Modern Times.
Together Through Life offers much to enjoy on a musical level and, typically, lyrics which twist on an ear-catching phrase are delivered in that love-it or hate-it phlegm-filled groan.
Not an easy-listening Dylan album, but a Dylan album that is easy to listen to.
Graham Reid
