Dylan mixes influences to create masterpiece

At the risk of saying, "here's yet another side of Bob Dylan," here it is. This album could be seen as a Basement Tapes or John Wesley Harding-like attempt at American musical history, but it's not. Oh, it's American history all right, he just got a little closer to the right answer here on Love And Theft, the icon's 43rd album. He looks to the blues, rockabilly, Tin Pan Alley, Sun Studios and country-swing to fit his vision.\nThis is Dylan's second indisputable masterpiece in a row, which is unfamiliar ground for a 60-year-old rock and roller. Gone is the swampy, deathbed feel of 1997's Time Out Of Mind, replaced with "that thin mercury sound" that Dylan used to describe his 1960s trilogy Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde. The lyrical imagery is dense, humorous and fits in so easily to the sound of his fabulous backing band (his touring band for the last two years). Dylan did the production himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost.\nOn songs like "Moonlight," "Bye And Bye" and "Po' Boy," Dylan looks to pre-rock pop music. At first listen these songs seem pretty awful, but it's easy to realize how they fit in with the album. It is pure schmaltz, but that's the point, the lyrics strike home that these songs are not to be taken sincerely. Listen to the way Dylan sings these songs, allowing his voice to crack, the sound of almost a restrained laugh, and the vision of the smirk on his face is clear.\nBut this album is not a joke -- it's an album of stories. On the aforementioned songs the stories are in the style. But songs such as "High Water (For Charley Patton)," go on On The Road-like journeys through the past, complete with wild, vivacious descriptions of the mundane and significant with equal attention.\nSo many people will inevitably scrutinize the album and whether they like it or not, the point should not be lost that Dylan set out to make a concept album. As he sings in "Summer Days," "she says, 'You can't repeat the past,' I say, 'You can't? What do you mean you can't? Of course, you can."