I was born without the gene that causes most music critics to erupt into a fit of hyperbole whenever some one mentions Bob Dylan. If you can appreciate his latest releases without pissing your pants and proclaiming it his best since Highway 61 Revisited or Blonde on Blonde then you’ll be able to accept Together Through Life for what it is. An appreciative tipping of his crown to the Sun and Chess record labels, who laid the foundations for early rock and roll and rhythm and blues.
You’ll enjoy his more gravelly than usual vocals, his sunnier than usual disposition and his collaborations with long time Tom Waits guitarist Mike Campbell and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter who, despite being more deeply involved than any Dylan collaborator since Jacques Levy (from ’76’s Desire album), ticks all the usual Dylan boxes. And you’ll also recognise that, after a few more listens, Together Through Life will find its way out of heavy rotation and disappear amongst all the other perfectly fine, but not fantastic, albums that drip from Dylan’s canon. Because not every album is going to be a Blonde on Blonde. Hell, they’re not all going to be a Modern Times, which is no shame. They are what they are and they don’t deserve to drown under the weight of critical exhalations.
