USA Today says of Bob Dylan’s 31st studio effort, released today, it’s “earthy blues, ragtime and rockabilly. The language shifts from mischievous to mysterious and romantic to rueful as Dylan surveys a crumbling world in doubt-shrouded songs about love and vengeance, faith and fate.”
The 10 songs, recorded with his touring band in January in New York, “are in my genealogy,” he says. “I had no doubts about them. I tend to overwrite stuff, and in the past I probably would have left it all in. On this, I tried my best to edit myself, and let the facts speak. You can easily get a song convoluted. That didn’t happen. Maybe I’ve had records like this before, but I can’t remember when.”