Bob Dylan
Time Out Of Mind

Elvis Costello said: "this is the greatest album Dylan has ever composed".

Debatable perhaps. We are, however, absolutely certain, after having listened carefully to this record, that we have in our hands an album of extraordinary craftsmanship. Certainly, it doesn’t possess the political harangues of the Dylan minstrel of the early sixties nor that lysergic, psychedelic, neurotic, and feverish aura of "Highway 61 Revisited" or "Blonde on Blonde", but "Time Out Of Mind" encapsulates within itself the soul and ideals of an artist who has reached a crucial point in his "pilgrimage": the sunset of expectations and life.

A career that seems an eternity. From the first high school recordings made with primitive means back in ‘58, Dylan arrived in ‘97 with a record that brilliantly encapsulates his immense, boundless experience as a songwriter and poet. It must be said that during these long years, he understandably experienced some artistically dark periods. The mid-eighties crisis seemed to decree the death of the Duluth minstrel; the specialized press unanimously declared him finished. Moreover, that immense weight that weighed on him, that of having been the one who in the ‘60s and ‘70s produced a dozen albums unanimously considered among the greatest masterpieces of popular art of the last century, would have flattened even the most resilient and tenacious artist. Instead, step by step, he was reborn like a phoenix from his own ashes and... here we are to comment on a completely resurrected artist. "Time Out Of Mind" marked the return of Mr. Zimmerman to the levels of yesteryear. It’s vintage blues that resonates in this album.

Dylan is dejected, disillusioned, and bitter in his cold and disarming reflections.

Engaging and warm in its sound, the album is unhinged by sharp judgments of disarming melancholy and pessimism. Starting with the dark and heartfelt blues of "Love Sick", dragging itself with a weary stride, passing through the gritty R&B of "Dirt Road Blues", which seems to have emerged from the best of Johnson or Lee Hooker, and still through the poignant notes of one of Dylan’s most intense and mature masterpieces: "Standing in the Doorway", seven minutes of true emotion, embellished with one of the most tender melodies of his entire repertoire, you can almost completely grasp the intrinsic value of the product. But, of course, that’s not all. The album features one of those songs that undoubtedly strike and leave a lasting mark: "Not Dark Yet". The emotion in listening to this piece is beyond words. It strikes in an extraordinary, if not astonishing way, with the crystalline and intact inspiration of Our Man, totally unexpected from an artist said to be worn out by many, leading us to make daring comparisons, far back in time. From my humble point of view, "Not Dark Yet" still perfectly preserves the magic of the most mystical, deep, and introspective Dylan. To be clear, the Dylan of "Simple Twist of Fate", "Shelter From The Storm", "Tangled Up in Blue", but even of "Visions Of Johanna" and "Desolation Row. The "wild mercury sound" of the feverish, lysergic years of youth is no more, but a deep, mature, knowledgeable, and wise sound, from someone who has seen the swift and relentless flow of hope and life escape. The soft, slow, and enveloping blues, enriched by ethereal and weeping guitars, forms a backdrop to a voice authentically suffered, emotional, inspired, and steeped in boundless melancholy. A disturbing, unstoppable, and also liberating stream of consciousness that, with its final guitar solo, lifts our soul to latitudes hitherto unknown and unexplored. "Not Dark Yet" is an "infinite" song, that resuscitates with every new listening, that never ceases to amaze and excite, soaring each time into new spiritual flights. It is truly impossible to try to set barriers to the infinite emotion that this piece manages to make us live.

The mystical magic of this "song" is masterfully picked up at the end of the album, in the splendid "Highlands". Another unstoppable stream of consciousness over sixteen intense minutes long. An ending that has been missing since the times of "Desolation Row" or "Sad Eyes Lady Of The Lowlands".

Within this album seeped in unspeakable and mystical moods, there is space also for little hidden gems: the delightful "Make You Feel My Love", for example, which takes us back to the sweet melodies of "It’s All Over Now Baby Blue" or "It Ain’t Me Babe", or the bluesy and harsh "Cold Irons Bound", or again the melancholic, almost poignant, "Tryin’ To Get To Heaven".

And thus we can well say that Dylan still manages to play the part of the drunken street musician, the head of the ramshackle circus with the fiery red curtains, the clown, the gambler: with the band of fellows who have followed him on tour for ages, he drags himself, like his song, through the sound streets of New Orleans, up and down the Mississippi and the freight trains of the Midwest, but above all up and down his personal ghosts.

One of Dylan’s greatest albums, perhaps the deepest and most mature.