The album for a dry, hot summer

Bob Dylan takes his audience on a journey through time with the deep south of the USA. "Together Through Life" sounds in large parts like the soundtrack to a documentary about the life of the Tex - Mexican border. The tribe - band, with Dylan and his Neverending - Tour continues, is also here, as on the last albums, represented and presented as both on one another, when the band was on the always unpredictable champion experienced team, supplemented but this time by the multi-instrumentalist David Hidalgo whose accordion "Together Through Life" a unique flair and an exotic lends that you last heard in Dylan's work on the masterpiece "Desire". Even a comparison with "Desire" suggests itself: For the first time since that time the master tolerates a co - author at his side. This time it is not a theater director, but the Grateful - Dead - lyricist Robert Hunter, with Dylan on a longstanding friendship and cooperation.
The result is not a monolithic masterpiece, as it were "Time Out Of Mind" or "Modern Times", "togehter Through Life" is better positioned in the context of the "Basement Tapes" or of the 2001 album "Love and Theft", a loving stroll through the traditional music of the United States, from the Dylan repeatedly took his inspiration. The good old friend Blues is the inspiration for many pieces of this beautiful song cycle. "Beyond Here Lies Nothing" and "My Wife's Home Town" sound, as if a Muddy Waters wrote it 50 years ago and the master had found her again somewhere in a dusty folder. Masterfully played, ennobled by Hidalgo and supported by Dylan's distinctive Raspelstimme, deploy songs an incomparable atmosphere. It is somewhat different with the blues - from pieces - Rock. Although "Jolene" and "Shake Shake Mama" rock quite comical, but remain overall good and behave. Perhaps you could first try out the songs on stage and then should thus go into the studio.
The strongest moments reached Dylan on "Together Through Life" when he reproduces the chroniclers shattering love stories, as in the lament "If You Ever Go To Houston" or in the here numerous representatives ballads ("Life Is Hard", written at the request of French film director Olivier Dahan and loud Dylan inspiration for the album, "Forgetful Heart", once again a beautifully wistful number of past love, "This Dream Of You" and the wonderful "I Feel A Change Comin 'On").
"Together Through Life" is one of those albums that make you not at first is quite clever, as first impression, it looks a bit unfinished and arbitrary. Its full charm it unfolds only after repeated listening, the best on hot summer nights with good company. Give it a try.