Tempest (Deluxe) [Deluxe Edition, Limited Edition]

After a few listens, 'Tempest' is starting to reveal itself as a more coherent and considered album than anything Dylan has come up with for decades. Thematically, its overarching concern is man's troubled journey towards oblivion. Yes, it's a 'death' album, but it's also a much more creative and poetic response to the theme than the doomy grumbling on 1997's 'Time Out of Mind'.

The obvious metaphor for our journey towards nemesis is the Titanic's doomed voyage on the title track, and this track is certainly the lynch-pin that holds the album together. But the Titanic's is not the only fatal Atlantic crossing on the album. 'Roll On John' ruminates on John Lennon's ill-fated passage across the sea from England; likewise in 'Narrow Way' the British cross the sea to inflict a "bleeding wound" on Washington by burning down the White House (a bleeding wound that is recalled by Leo's bleeding arm in 'Tempest'). There are other journeys too, similarly heading towards disaster. The Boss in 'Tin Angel' travels out to surprise his wife in flagrente, only for all three of the love-triangle to end up dead. Even the jaunty 'Duquesne Whistle' is from a train that's "on its final run", and whose eponymous whistle makes a sound as though "the sky's gonna blow apart" - just like "the universe opening wide" on 'Tempest' as the ship begins to sink. All through the album, Dylan seems to take grim delight in reminding us that we're all holding a one way ticket and, like the captain of the Titanic, when we stare the compass in the face, "the needle is pointing down". The agents of death are often occluded. There's no iceberg mentioned in the title song; likewise there's no namecheck for Chapman in 'Roll on John'. On 'Tempest', its seems, it's doom alone that counts.

If that's not enough bad news, Dylan has even colder comfort for us. The pleasures of the flesh are fleeting, transient, and maybe not really pleasures at all. 'Scarlet Town', with its "flat chested junkie whores", is a red-light district straight out of the mind of Hieronymous Bosch. 'Pay in Blood' has Dylan making love to "a bitch and a hag"; 'Long and Wasted Years' writes off the comfort of long-term relationships ("so much for tears, so much for these long and wasted years"), while the genuinely sexy sex that's hinted at in 'Tin Angel' ends in an inevitable bloodbath. In fact, transactional sex is quite a preoccupation on this album (too much life on the road, Bob?). We meet Charlotte the Harlot in 'Soon After Midniight' and Davy the brothel-keeper and his girls are among the Titanic's victims in 'Tempest'. "You may say I'm a pimp .. but I'm not", Bob reminds us on 'Duquesne Whistle'. But human blood will have its way: "I'm going to have to bury my head between your breasts", Dylan leers lasciviouly on 'Narrow Way'. 'Soon After Midnight' seems more romantic at first listen ("I've got a date with the fairy queen"), but it's maybe even darker. Who exactly is the narrator meant to be? Maybe there's a clue in 'Tempest', where "the veil was torn asunder between the hours of 12 and 1" - soon after midnight, in other words. Maybe the narrator on 'Soon After Midnight' is the Grim Reaper himself?

If there's no redemption in love and sex, it seems there's nothing for it for us poor mortals but to brutalise and violate each other while we make our brief voyage aboard the Ship of Fools. The many images on 'Tempest' of "brother turning against brother" are repeated in the scenes of violence and bloodletting that permeate the whole album. It's completely the Hobbes vision of man's life: nasty, brutish and short. Meanwhile political elites from the Early Roman Kings down through to the Sicilian Mafia are busy "pumping out the piss". Dylan's cynicism, contempt and despair for the world seem bottomless. Even God's will appears fathomless and arbitrary: "there is no understanding for the judgement of God's hand". "The angels turn aside" from the reaper's work on the Titanic, and in 'Pay in Blood' even death washes its hands of mankind.

The emptiness is endless? Maybe not. Bob has commented in interviews that he originally wanted to make a religious album, and maybe nested inside 'Tempest' there's still a hope of Christian salvation for the doomed of the world. There's certainly plenty of bread and wine scattered through the lyrics, not to mention blood and water. And ultimately perhaps it's only the blood of Christ that can redeem mankind from the apocalyptic horrors of the world, which 'Tempest' enumerates with such grim relish. Maybe that's why the narrator of 'Pay In Blood' is so cocksure and confident and he surveys the valley of death: his sins have already been redeemed by Jesus' ultimate sacrifice. He pays in blood, but not his own.

Of course, I could be barking up all sorts of wrong trees here. But that's half the fun of having a new Dylan album to grapple with. And, by any measure, 'Tempest' is a fine late-Dylan album. It stands shoulder to shoulder with 'Modern Times' and "Love and Theft" as a career-enhancing piece of work. It's extraordinary that Dylan is still creating at all in 2012. It's beyond extraordinary that he's still producing work of this calibre. Roll on, Bob!

Of the accumulated reviews of this new Bob Dylan album its difficult to find one that has not referenced that "Tempest" shares its name with Shakespeare's final play. With the great man into his 70's is the master musician leaving yet another tell tale sign? Let us exhort that this is not the case for on this form you can only plead that long may he run. Whatever Dylan's intentions the title is accurately appropriate since " Tempest" is a dark and often stormy affair notably containing a 14 minute and 45 verses long title song dedicated to the sinking of the Titanic where Dylan throws in some of his most vivid images, torrid tales and pale sorrow not least a Captain who "In the dark illumination, he remembered bygone years/He read the Book of Revelation, filled his cup with tears". It is wordplay of the highest order and actually names check Leonard DiCaprio to bring it all up to date.

The album kicks off with "Duqunese Whistle" sounding like a track from a honky tonk jukebox until Dylan's voice kicks in and commences an excellent railroad song which skips along at a fair old pace as the stations pass by. The lovely country lament "Soon after midnight" follows, so effortless and yet so right. The mood changes quickly for the near eight minute long "Narrow Way" a barbed electric guitar piece which rocks hard enough to performed in garages across the US. Dylan's last proper studio album was "Together through life" in 2009 (let us forget his yuletide abomination in that same year) and that suffered from serious sagging in the mid section (a problem for all men of a certain age). "Tempest" is closer to "Modern times" in this respect since every song fits and it's a solid set not least the excellent trilogy of songs from four to six. This comprises Dylan at his most reflective in the superb "Long and Wasted Years" where the master lyricist concludes that "we cried on that cold and frosty morn/we cried because our souls were torn so much for tears/so much for these long and wasted years". He is at his snarling best in the belligerent "Pay in blood" where his excellent road band provide great support. He also appears to tip a nod to Gillian Welch in "Scarlet town" which appears a distant cousin of the song on "The Harrow and Harvest". It's a great Dylan performance with that old gravelly voice sounding as vital as ever and strong to boot. Next up Muddy Waters "Mannish Boy" provides the backdrop to "Early Roman Kings" with a great David Hidalgo cantina-blues accordion providing the necessary earthy accompaniment. Dylan has always specialised in songs where vengeance is the unifying theme and "Tin Angel" couldn't be further removed from the Joni Mitchell love song of the same name sounding more like a Nick Cave murder ballad with its gory bloodshot finale. Having mentioned the albums huge "Titanic" narrative leaves us finally to touch on "Roll on John" a seven minute tribute to John Lennon starting with his assassination, referencing the Quarrymen, Hamburg and various sources of Beatles legend not least part of the lyric of "A day in the life". At this point it is this reviewers least favourite song on "Tempest" since if it wasn't composed by any one other than Dylan it could sound somewhat gauche and overtly sentimental. It is certainly does not match Paul Simon's "The Late great Johnny Ace" but it's a tender recognition of an old friend and proves that Dylan can be sweet hearted and nostalgic when needed.

This is Dylan's 35th studio album and stands as a firm equal to "Love and Theft" as his best album of the 21st century. We have no right to expect albums this good after all this time and the fact that he continues to confound, puzzle and challenge should be cause for rejoicing. 2012 looks like being the year of the veteran with great albums by Dr John, Paul Buchanan, Bill Fay and Leonard Cohen. And yet amongst all this excellence "Tempest" confirms Dylan's rightful pole position as the greatest storyteller in rock history

Tempest is a sea-shanty; a dock-side tavern ale drinking song for old salts; a camp-fire sing-along led by a country fiddler. Tempest is an epic poem relating in 45 verses the story of the sinking of the Titanic with a cast of characters real, imagined, fictional and mythical and possibly a few left-over misfits from Desolation Row. It is a massive achievement and it is, of course, a metaphor. We are all sinking.
This is the most recent of Dylan's studio albums with his now firmly established and matchless backing band wandering easily around blues, cowboy songs, Tex-Mex and early rock and roll, with affectionate nods in the direction of other folk and country styles and artists, all with that small-town country dance hall feel. The voice is a powerful, matured drawl, the songs a fine collection of the American traditions that Dylan has drawn from and, more than anyone else, enriched.
Early Roman Kings is a furtive, dirty, menacing blues that's got the world guessing what it's all about. I tell you something, it ain't about the early Roman kings.
Duquesne Whistle begins as what sounds like a scratchy Jimmie Rodgers train song played on a wind-up gramophone then lifts up a gear into a Western swing with pedal-steel guitar, brushes on the snare-drum and a bass loping along at eight beats to the bar.
Long And Wasted Years starts out as an early Elvis song, a Sun Records demo from around 1956. A slow country ballad. After the lonesome, reverbing solo guitar intro, the band break into a heart-breaking descending guitar riff, relentlessly repeated. It's about what could have been, what should have been, regrets and loss, rejection and dejection, for Elvis, for Dylan, for John Lennon, for me, for all of us. We are all sinking, or being sunk.
Elsewhere there are rock and roll ballads, Chicago blues, lilting country waltzes, Appalachian mandolins and guitar riffs that Link Wray, Bill Justis and Duane Eddy would break your arm to wrest from you. There's revenge, mystique, poetry, crimes of passion, all turned out in that magisterial voice that could turn boy bands to pillars of salt from 50 paces. And beware the Early Roman Kings . . .