Fallen Angels (2016)
1. Young at Heart
2. Maybe You'll Be There
3. Polka Dots and Moonbeams
4. All the Way
5. Skylark
6. Nevertheless
7. All or Nothing at All
8. On a Little Street in Singapore
9. It Had to Be You
10.Melancholy Mood
11.That Old Black Magic
12.Come Rain or Come Shine
This album, in many ways, is a carbon copy to last year’s Shadows in the Night. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he recorded both of these albums at the same time. The main difference between these two albums is that this one is slightly more upbeat, and does have quite a bit more variety. My criticism of Shadows in the Night was not the melancholy content, but rather that I felt as though I was listening to the same song over and over again.
I still confess that I’m not a huge fan of this genre, nor do I really think that Bob Dylan is necessarily the type of artist that should tackle this style. He does an admirable job, however, and the fact that he stretched this project into two albums shows that he was a bit more committed that many might think. Being that these two albums are each under 40 minutes, it certainly wouldn’t be out of the question to have simply combined these releases onto one, single 75 minute compact disc. That, however, would have been simply too much to digest. As it is, at times the 35 minute length of each of these records seems just about enough, so maybe that thought went through his mind as well when he was in the recording studio.
I definitely prefer this one to the former, but I confess that I doubt if I’ll be listening to either one of these records too frequently in the future. To be honest, if he keeps going at his advanced age, I’m hoping that he shelves his “Easy Listening” phase and tackles something else. A good record that does exactly what it sets out to do, and an excellent tribute to the crooners of yesteryear. I just can’t imagine that many fans being too ecstatic about this one – even if it’s slightly preferable to its predecessor.
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