Bob Dylan’s latest album sees him once again return to the Great American Songbook, 12 months after finding critical success with previous effort, Shadows In The Night.
With so many tracks left over from the Shadows sessions, cheerful Bobcats (as such fans are known!) must have had an inkling that a follow up to the album of songs made famous by Frank Sinatra was in the pipeline. That it manages to scale the heights of its forebear is likely to be equally good news. Fallen Angels, as the release is titled, is no mere selection of offcuts, with some well-known tracks making it onto the tracklisting this time around. With a more upbeat tone – only slightly, mind – 
than Shadows, Fallen Angels sees Dylan and his band in a playful mood, all the while delivering these tracks with respect and admiration. Dylan’s vocal performances have been divisive since the 1960s, but here his weathered vocals and sometimes missed notes are perfectly suited to the tracks. When Dylan sings the lyric about surviving “til a hundred-and-five” on the opener Young At Heart, it’s not too difficult to imagine him only having a couple of years to go, sounding older than even his 75 years. His phrasing and ability to get to the heart of a track have grown stronger with age, and this telling of a well-known classic is one of the album’s finest performances. He croons his way through On a Little Street in Singapore pretty well, too, although it’s clear that his voice isn’t quite cut out for that type of work. Nonetheless, it remains enjoyable, the perfect soundtrack to a late night or an early morning.
Musically speaking, Fallen Angels is a fantastic work. Produced by Dylan himself under his Jack Frost alias, the album has a wide soundstage and is beautifully recorded. Longtime Dylan cohorts Tony Garnier (bass) and Charlie Sexton (lead guitar) are amongst the finest musicians working today, and their work here borders on the sublime. First single, Melancholy Mood, sounds like it would have fitted nicely on Dylan’s 2001 record, Love & Theft, Garnier’s bass holding the track together wonderfully, before Sexton’s bluesy solo leads the song out. The same could be said for next track, That Old Black Magic. The pace picks up, the band switches things up, putting a swing influence behind Dylan’s vocal that really makes the song a foot tapper. Being cut from the same sessions as Shadows In The Night, there’s not a whole lot here for anyone who wasn’t as much of a fan of that work. Those hankering for a Dylan album of new compositions will seemingly have to wait a while longer for the true follow up to 2012’s Tempest. But anyone who enjoyed Shadows is just as likely to take to this album, and with Dylan and his band on such top form, the wait for any new work is surely sated for the time being.
Author: Chris, Liverpool store
