Audio CD review:
Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy

Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy

Band: Bob Dylan Title: Oh Mercy Rating: Release Date: 01 June, 2004 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Political World 2: Where Teardrops Fall 3: Everything Is Broken 4: Ring Them Bells 5: Man In The Long Black Coat 6: Most Of The Time 7: What Good Am I? 8: Disease Of Conceit 9: What Was It You Wanted 10: Shooting Star

Editoral Review But he capped it off with his first album of all-original material in several years and his best since Infidels. The '80s was a particularly shifting, uncertain decade for Bob Dylan's creative voice. A lot of the credit for Oh Mercy's distinctive appeal has been given to producer/musician Daniel Lanois (who backs Dylan on all but one cut), and there's no denying the effect of his magnetic, fog-thick sound sculpturing here. Overlays of lap steel, dobro, and mercy keys along with a slithering subterranean bass evoke a complete sonic climate, and the synergy between Lanois and Dylan would have a huge payoff with 1997's devastating Time out of Mind. But however tightly produced, Oh Mercy also displays Dylan at the peak of his songwriting craft, fracturing words and phrases for the things-fall-apart jeremiads of "Political World" and "Everything is Broken" and stringing images together for the noirish ballad "Man in the Long Black Coat. " There's the usual dichotomy between Dylan's slashing accusatory mode ("What Was It You Wanted") and the self-effacement of "What Good Am I?" Aside from the miscalculated, sappy "Where Teardrops Fall" (the disc's sore thumb), this album has the classic staying power of Dylan's finest efforts. --Thomas May .. You can see a complete list of all Bob Dylan discography, or go back to the Bob Dylan tabs