A Field Guide to the Urban Hipster

Rating:
Summary: Yes, yes, YES!
Review: You won't find the digital swamp-groove of Time Out of Mind here - on Love and Theft, Dylan puts songs first, returning to the blues stomp of Blonde on Blonde for "Lonesome Day Blues" (on which Dylan growls like a bear cat that hasn't eaten since the Eighties) and the slide guitar of "Highway 61 Revisited" for "Honest With Me." But Love and Theft is in many ways a riskier, looser and more profoundly strange album than Time Out of Mind. It is full of surprises, flamboyant reinventions and sly goofs, as though Dylan had finally earned the right and ability to do whatever he wanted. This includes asides about booty calls, a knock-knock joke and at least one song, "Moonlight," that sounds like it was recorded in a Parisian dance hall in the 1930s. The album title comes from Eric Lott's classic 1993 history of blackface minstrelsy in American culture, a telling reference point for an album that explores some of the twisted roots of rock & roll. Dylan's got a working band to push him these days - Love and Theft shows off the touring musicians with whom Dylan has played nearly 500 gigs since Time Out of Mind. Like his voice, his band is an instrument that Dylan is obviously having a blast learning to play. With guest keyboards from Texas legend Augie Meyers, as well as the twin guitars of Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell, Love and Theft celebrates the most fruitful relationship Dylan's had with a band since the Band.