Time Out of Mind
At the beginning ofTime Out of Mind, Bob Dylan finds himself in the same dead-day world as on 1964's"One Too Many Mornings."By now, though, he can't be bothered to romanticize the street and the distant dogs' barking; he can only moan about how sick he is of love, of himself. Saying it seems to give him the strength to go on, and go on he does, over 11 songs that are among his most plainspoken and musically eloquent. The reconstituted bottle-blues that sparked the early '90s acoustic masterpiecesGood As I Been to YouandWorld Gone Wrongcarries over to Daniel Lanois's carefully dirty production and a groove that tops anything Dylan's done in a studio since, at least,Blood on the Tracks. No matter how lousy he feels, this is the work of a mighty, mighty man.--Rickey Wright