Bob Dylan – ‘Shadow Kingdom’ album review
At 82-years-old, Bob Dylan is still the original vagabond out on the road and seeing him live remains biblical. Unlike a lot of older icons, Dylan has not become a tribute act to his former glory. In many ways, this itself is a tribute to his artistry in the first place—none of his work was ever upholding to any gimmick or pretence, it was all about the power of the songs themselves and they have remained as timeless as ever. And so, he has aged like a great artist should, weathering towards a mystic depth and imbued with a gravelled power that defies his frail stature like a feather that floats towards a window and shatters the pane on impact.
This delicate shower of shear craft comes across in stunning fashion on his new live album, Shadow Kingdom. The 13 tracks were handpicked by Dylan from his live broadcast event of the same name back in 2021 during the dark days of the pandemic. His work then was as comforting and illuminating as a kid’s book to a child; on this polished up new record, that is most certainly still the case.
Beginning in a bluesy manner with ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’, Dylan orchestrates a textured arrangement with ease as his magnificent band follow his lead like how Sterlings respond in murmuration. Opening on a relatively obscure cut also sets the tone for the album’s tracklisting. Yes, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ might not feature, but he’s played those two anthems thousands of times over his career, why would you want to hear them again over a master following his muse with absolute sincerity?
This sense of Dylan being at one with his creativity is a feast to behold throughout the album. It turns ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ into a continental sounding epic akin to a croaky Scott Walker tune. That divergence highlights the brilliant depths of Dylan’s imagination above all else. These old tracks are reborn as stirring new efforts almost entirely dissociated from what they once were in a strange allegory for the shifts of time that proves to be a constant theme in the welter of the record.
Recently, when Dylan was asked about why he still continues to play live, he answered: “The reason you do it is because it’s a perfect way to stay anonymous, and still be a member of the social order. You’re the master of your fate. You manipulate reality and move through time and space with the proper attitude. It’s not an easy path to take, not fun and games, it’s no Disney World.”
He told the Wall Street Journal: “It’s an open space, with concrete pillars and an iron floor, with obligations and sacrifices. It’s a path, and destiny put some of us on that path, in that position. It’s not for everybody.” In the past, Dylan told Pete Townshend that it is the preordained fate of the folk musician, one programmed into Dylan as soon as he took to the stage. “I asked Bob Dylan why he does so many gigs,” Townshend recalled of their encounter at Desert Trip. “He told me, ‘I’m a folk singer. A folk singer is only as good as his memory, and my memory is going.’ He’s doing it to keep his memory alive.“
And on Shadow Kingdom, he is as vital as ever. The title seems to decreed the coded myth that makes the album soar. As he once wrote: “Songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment. They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality. Some different republic, some liberated republic.” In a live setting, Dylan is still able to manipulate reality towards this sovereignty of song, towards his mythic shadow kingdom.
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