Bob Dylan has had a good twelve years.  Three critically acclaimed albums, three off-center films exploring his musical and cultural importance, and a well regarded series of (mostly) important and killer unreleased live/studio material (if you don’t have the “Live 1975 Bootleg Series” release, stop reading this damn review and go get it now). Certainly a far cry from where we found Dylan twenty years ago…

Relegated as a washed up has-been through the 80s, as a consequence of ill-produced and ill-conceived albums (“Empire Burlesque” or “Down in the Groove” anyone?), a tired and musically bored Dylan locked himself into his home studio in the early 90s, got back to basics,  and released two heartfelt stripped down cover albums of trad folk. He also released the stunning “Bootleg Series 1 -3.” The revelation of this initial bootleg series was the unreleased material from the 80s. Songs like “Blind Willie McTell,” “Angelina,” and “Foot of Pride” were like miracles for Dylan fans. It wasn’t dark yet, by God.

He made an official commercial and critical comeback with 1997’s “Time Out of Mind” which was a strong haunting meditation of mortality (the album was especially timely given Dylan’s medical scare shortly after the album dropped), and 2001’s “Love and Theft” was a stone classic, as brilliant and important as anything he released in the 60s. No wonder it took him four years to follow that up.

2006’s “Modern Times” was another critical success, but, to tell the truth, it just wasn’t as good as the reviews made out. Many of the songs had awkward and inscrutable arrangements. Now, Dylan is the master of awkward and inscrutable arrangements, but the material he was passing off on “Modern Times” was meant to be earthier and funkier—a companion to “Love and Theft.” An okay album—a second tier offering like “Street Legal” or “Infidels.” Frankly, Dylan seemed bored again. Live performances, which were consistently good to brilliant during the ’96 – ’04 era, were suffering as well.

This all brings us to “Together Through Life,” released on April 28. The album finds Dylan mining the same terrain as “Modern Times,” but with a more organic and straightforward sound. “Together Through Life” is the album “Modern Times” wanted to be. It is also thematically his most cohesive album since “Time Out of Mind.” The overarching theme of the album suggests the difficulty, danger and drabness of a life lived alone. Dylan is once again in touch with the zeitgeist; we need each other baby, ‘cause it’s a cold and ugly world out there.   

Of course Dylan finds the zeitgeist playing country-blues somewhere between a dirt road on the Texas borderland and the twilight zone. One of the (pleasant) surprises of the album is finding Robert Hunter (Jerry Garcia’s songwriting partner) co-writing nine of the ten songs here. This probably explains the loose-limbed and natural vibe of the album, as the Dead spent most of their career somewhere between the old west and orbiting one of Jupiter’s moons.

Another of the surprises here is David Hidalgo, from Los Lobos, playing accordion and guitar on the album. I’ve often thought that Dylan lost a key component of his band when multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Larry Campbell departed for jammier and more wide open confines of Phil Lesh’s band. The addition of Hidalgo adds a free-wheeling and zesty topping to the proceedings that haven’t been seen since Larry left the band.

The album kicks off with “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” a slow burn blues taken from the blueprint of Willie Dixon and Otis Rush’s  1960 tune “All Your Love.” It finds Dylan in a spooky and funky mood, reprising the sentiment he offered forty-odd years ago when he told us that love minus zero equals no limit. This time with a bit more kick, and a lot more blues.

“Life is Hard”  and “This Dream of You” are  lovely ballads that find Dylan crooning (seriously) about lost love (both songs are ripe for the obligatory scene in romantic comedies when the boy is contemplating life without the girl—you know that scene).

Dylan (and Hunter, who’s lived a hell of a life too y'know) salutes the past with no regrets and an eye to the future with the bouncy and hypnotic “If You Ever Go To Houston.”

“Jolene” and “Shake Shake Mama” are funky blues numbers that shake, jump, and boogie. These are fun ravers that, while not the best songs on the album, have a tendency to become barnburner live songs in the vein of “Lonesome Day Blues” or “Cat’s in the Well.”  

“Together Through Life” comes out on the other side with his two closing numbers. “I Feel a Change Comin’ On” is breezy and sun-kissed, a summer day back porch song draped in tie-dye drinking its way though a six pack of beer (I told you Robert Hunter was a lyricist here). Hell, he’s reading Joyce and listening to Billy Joe Shaver according to the lyrics. Of course by this point he could be listening to Joyce and reading Shaver—anyway, it’s all good, right?

Speaking of all good, Dylan manages to push past the broken hearts, the wasteland, and even the blues to proclaim: “It’s All Good.” A cynical person might observe that the song is ironic, that Dylan is pointing out our nasty trait of ignoring the hell screaming around us, that in the midst of insanity we whistle past the graveyard, divert ourselves with inane pleasures, and inure ourselves to the terror and horror of modern life. Perhaps. Perhaps he’s saying something else here as well.

 Dylan doesn’t ignore the shit and muck and sickness we have to wade through in life, and neither should we. But I read “It’s All Good” as Dylan pointing to the simple fact that we need each other, that with love on our side we got nothin’ to worry ‘bout, that if we would just get together it can be all good.  It is all good, baby. All Good. Yes.  

"Together Through Life"? Hey man, it’s all good.