Bob Dylan/The Band: Before The Flood (Asylum)

THROUGHOUT BOB DYLAN'S performances on this in-concert album there is evident an effort to match the material – nearly all from much earlier in his career – with a suitable style of delivery, a vocal stance which can express in a later year the brilliant and sometimes malevolent energy contained by these pieces when they were first created. Dylan's principal solution is to sing in aggressive, uptempo fashion, borrowing voltage from the Band's rock backing to substitute for the hungry power both he and the Band have outgrown. Sometimes, as on the opening ‘Most Likely You Go Your Way’, the emphasis is effectively placed. More often, singer and band display an unseemly awkwardness.