Shadow Kingdom

Product Information

Tim Cumming, writing at The Arts Desk, noted that the "best song performances – " Queen Jane Approximately", " Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and " Tombstone Blues" from Highway 61, a poignant " Forever Young" and a killer version of "What Was it you Wanted", one I may never hear bettered – make this required listening when it comes to later-period Bob, a rare look back in studio conditions, and from a high point in his career".

The film was incredibly well received (check out the two quotes at the top) and the new arrangements plus Dylan’s vocals really shine. Shadow Kingdom consists of new recordings of 13 songs from the first half of Dylan's career plus a new instrumental song titled "Sierra's Theme". Shadow Kingdom the album, then, turns out to be an extremely useful addition to the Dylan catalogue, and very much of a piece with his current manoeuvres. 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. What Bob has done is to go back to key albums in the 60s and 70s, with one title from Oh Mercy from 1989, and re-recorded some less obvious songs.

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. Shadow Kingdom presents Dylan performing revelatory 21st century versions of songs from his storied back catalogue – including fan favourites like "Forever Young" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," and deep catalogue gems like "Queen Jane Approximately" and "The Wicked Messenger. The Daily Telegraph 's Neil McCormick gave the album a five out of five star rating and wrote: "What an absolute joy it is, in which the grand old man of songcraft flips through his own back pages with genuine relish, a man in his 80’s revisiting the words of his firebrand youth and finding entirely new meanings there". Une forme d'épuration grâce à un retour à une orchestration très acoustique, de la musique sans rajout, le tout très intimiste. Shadow Kingdom showcases Bob Dylan in an intimate setting as he performs songs from his extensive body of work, created especially for this event.

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional critics, the album received an average score of 84 based on 13 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". 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. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.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. 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 “Wicked Messenger.

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. Sodomsky also discussed director Alma Har'el's "knack for visualizing the haunted barroom production that Dylan has favored on his modern studio albums: As he sings in dusky rooms filled with cigarette smoke and lamplight, mannequins and Western characters, the whole thing takes on a surreal, ghostlike quality". Willman also praised Dylan's vocal performances ("he hasn’t sounded better in decades") and compared the "surreality" of the film's fictional setting (the non-existent "Bon Bon Club" in Marseille, France) to locations in David Lynch's Twin Peaks.And what the subtitle described as ‘The Early Songs Of Bob Dylan’, reconfigured without drums to complement the liminal atmosphere of director Alma Har’el’s visuals.