To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. 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. 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. Directed by Israeli-American filmmaker Alma Har'el, it was shot on a soundstage in Santa Monica, California over seven days in 2021 while Dylan was sidelined from his Never Ending Tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A livestream designed to be ephemeral, to disappear like the smoke from all those cigarettes after a couple of days. Think of it as a companion to Rough And Rowdy Ways, and that album’s ongoing tour: as if Dylan were reinventing those ‘Early Songs’ in the same silvery light, and getting them out of the way before he hits the road again to concentrate on his Latest Songs. Tombstone Blues, slowed to a spectral recitation, sounds like it was written the same day as Murder Most Foul, but a day that’s hard to place in either 2020 or 1965. Pledging My Time is the most ethereal of blues, a rendering of tradition that seems to be broadcast from the spirit plane. 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".

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Bizarrely the band are all wearing masks on the inner gatefold and there is no insert or sleeve credits. Empire also compared the Bon Bon club's atmosphere to "the vibe of the sleeve art of last year’s Rough and Rowdy Ways". 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. A location shrouded in enigma and subterfuge (a Santa Monica soundstage being somewhat less romantic).

Bob Dylan Gets Smoke in His Eyes, but Not So Much in His Excellent Vocals, in Lynch-esque 'Shadow Kingdom': Stream Review".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. In 1962, however, a Bon Bon “supper club” in Philadelphia was the subject of a court case with Pat Lynn Hackett, a folk singer, accusing the owners of racketeering.

I don't quite know what this album is about other than it was some project that Dylan worked on last year, and I don't know what the musical interlude between each song is about. It’s particularly impressive on What Was It You Wanted, a cut from 1989’s Oh Mercy that doesn’t seem especially ‘Early’ until you realise it was recorded 27 years into Dylan’s career, and that 34 years have subsequently elapsed. 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.This means that the sound is close to Tex-Mex with its use of acoustic guitars and an accordion to add colour it is a very gentle sound and Dylan's voice is relaxing presence.