Shadow Kingdom

Product Information

And while the roadhouse rhythm of the touring band is replaced by more of a stealthy cantina sway – lots of accordion and acoustic guitars, no piano or fiddle – there’s a clear affinity. As well as appearing on More greatest hits, it was a rare and unfairly overlooked single, with Spanish is the loving tongue on the B side. The album's setlist includes 13 original songs handpicked by Dylan plus the closing instrumental, "Sierra's Theme.

The film features Dylan and a group of masked musicians performing 13 songs from the first half of Dylan's career in an intimate club-like setting. Bob Dylan Gets Smoke in His Eyes, but Not So Much in His Excellent Vocals, in Lynch-esque 'Shadow Kingdom': Stream Review". Its brief 2021 run remains a puzzle, but no longer an illusion: The Bon Bon Club is open for business again, whenever we need it. Dylan has long treated his songs as standards, so compositionally robust as to be infinitely malleable, but the gravitas here is striking; as if the removal of the beats has removed the song from linear time.Musicians were listed at the end of the livestream – among them Shahzad Ismaily on accordion, and Big Thief’s Buck Meek, though none of Dylan’s road band – but aren’t mentioned in the album credits. Drawn from a 2021 live stream with Dylan revisiting his past through the prism of his current sound. A Rolling Stone review by Michaelangelo Matos named Shadow Kingdom one of the "Hear This" recommended albums for the month of June 2023, claiming that Dylan makes his classic songs "seem stunningly brand new". Bizarrely the band are all wearing masks on the inner gatefold and there is no insert or sleeve credits.

Although no musicians are listed in the credits, various sources have identified the session players as consisting of veterans such as T Bone Burnett and Don Was. This recording of a 2023 video presents songs from the first half of Dylan's career in radical reformulations. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. A review by Scott Bauer of the Associated Press praised the arrangements, noting how the "heavy dose of accordion and no drums" make the songs "sound fresh again".

The album charted in at least 19 countries and reached the top 10 in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Scotland and Switzerland.

The album was preceded by a single for " Watching the River Flow", which was released on streaming platforms and as a YouTube video on April 13, 2023.

Empire also compared the Bon Bon club's atmosphere to "the vibe of the sleeve art of last year’s Rough and Rowdy Ways". The old songs and vintage effect might invoke a certain nostalgia, but the juke joint ambience is more Lynchian than neat historic reconstruction, and the songs sound little like they used to do.

Shadow Kingdom nonetheless earned rave reviews from critics, many of whom praised Dylan's creative re-arrangements of his early songs as well as Har'el's imaginative staging of the performances. The album's cover photograph is a black-and-white still image of Bob Dylan playing the harmonica taken from the film Shadow Kingdom: The Early Songs of Bob Dylan, directed by Alma Har'el and shot by Lol Crawley. Originally reinterpreted for an exclusive streaming film event, which aired in July 2021, Shadow Kingdom will now be available on vinyl, CD, and streaming platforms for the first time. from 1989's Oh Mercy favourite tracks include Queen Jane Approximately, Most Likely You Go Your Way [ And I'll Go Mine], When I Paint My Masterpiece and Watching The River Flow.Some viewers expected the event to be a live concert and were surprised when it turned out to be a stylized black-and-white art film featuring "pre-recorded set pieces" instead. Variety's Chris Willman wrote that those who purchased advanced tickets to the Veeps livestream "did not really know much about what they were signing up for" but that "[w]hat they got, most would agree, was better — if shorter — than they imagined". Originally reinterpreted for an exclusive streaming film event, which aired in July 2021, Shadow Kingdom is now available on vinyl and CD for the first time. Shadow Kingdom presents Dylan performing revelatory 21st century versions of songs from his storied back catalog – including fan favorites like "Forever Young" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," and deep catalog gems like "Queen Jane Approximately" and "The Wicked Messenger.