Dylan brings in the blues, brings out the love, on blazing new disc

If there's one thing I don't like about the Rolling Stones -- and by the way, I love the Rolling Stones -- it's that they have a longer Wikipedia page than Bob Dylan. \nTo you, a rational human being, this might seem like total nonsense, but to me, those with more impact, more legacy, more verve, -- whatever -- should have the longest pages. And while the Stones are still lickin', Dylan's still awake too, busy bolstering his legacy with triumphant folk-hero exuberance. \nThe latest example is "Modern Times," in which Dylan zooms, like the Delorean, all the way back -- past the tumult of the 70s, the soft-hearted, big sound of the 60s -- all the way back to the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, ditch-digging for Americana. What he excavates is a mesh of perfect late-life Dylan, smelting blues, folk, ragtime, angst, confusion, confidence and brilliance.\nThis isn't, of course, mid-period Bob, and nothing makes that clearer than the gent's voice on "Modern Times." Raspier and more subdued, one can imagine him shaking his head softly about the microphone on the bluesy "Thunder on the Mountain," the album's first track. Young Dylan, more urgent, might have screamed at the mic here. \nThe maestro swings from the blues to a ragtime-y "Spirit on the Water," and then jumps back into the blues again with "Rollin' and Tumblin,'" a Muddy Waters update. Happy in "Spirit," Dylan tells his woman "I just want you any way I can." Bob's suddenly angry in "Rollin' and Tumblin,": "I ain't nobody's house boy/I ain't nobody's well-trained maid/I'm flat-out spent/This woman she been driving me to tears/She's driving me crazy/I swear I ain't going to touch another one for years."\nHey cupcake: Don't anger the Dylan! Didn't you hear "Like a Rolling Stone?"\nThe swings don't stop there, though, as Dylan cascades back into a caressing mood on the twinkly "Working Man's Blues #2." "You are dearer to me than myself/as you yourself will see." This lonely, loving track creates an atmosphere of loss and faith, of a man stuck in a life he hates, with only one positive: the woman who buoys him, keeps him strong and moving forward. It's a dizzying little taste of working class mysticism, a picture of a simple life with simple needs and issues. It's for any one who has ever felt strengthened by a singular aspect of their life and daringly tackled their own vulnerability. \n"Beyond the Horizon" feels like a Hawaiian luau, and "Nettie Moore" thrives in front of a quietly searing piano coda. Dylan closes the album with a old-time, knee-slapping rearrangement of "When the Levees Broke" before the unsettling "Ain't Talkin'."\nBy the time he is finished with the listener, Dylan has made his best album of his modern resurgence, raking so many mixed messages about love and lust and relationship flame-ups, it might be difficult to diffuse a singular theme. Dylan's coherence, though, lies in his eclecticism, his unwillingness to boorishly boil down the complexities of modern love. In the end, he probably knows far more about us than we do.