Immortal Tempest

On Tempest’s first single Bob Dylan channels Gollum over some repetitive, juke-boxey swing tune about a whistle. It’s the type of song that, after a fifth listen or fifth rye, might switch on a psychotic hairpin from irritating to brilliant. It’s hard to imagine a being who relishes elder-bluesman Dylan, outside your usual perverse misanthrope blasting late-career Bob to enjoy the void between his cultural unimpeachability and the actual music. And yes, like on the Christmas album, Dylan still sounds like a whiskey-sunk wretch, debauching hymns over that unfathomably persistent snare waltz. I didn’t say it wasn’t fun.

Rolling Stone’s Will Hermes calls this Dylan’s darkest record, and I think I know what he means. Maybe Dylan’s still fucking with us, on some metaphysical crusade against good taste, but I sense he’s sincere as hell, and like the titular whistle, won’t be stopping—ever.