Trouble No More: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 13 1979-1981

The treat here, as with all of his Bootleg releases, is the rarities. [No. 149, p.54]

While Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love are considered by many to be forgettable aberrations in an otherwise sterling discography, there are even more who realize that this was a crucial period in the career of one of music's most exciting and revolutionary artists. Trouble No More provides plenty of evidence of this.

Less obsessive (and deep-pocketed) fans will be absolutely fine with the 2-CD set, but repetition aside, the deluxe set certainly offers multiple delights.

Across these 102 tracks, he sounds as devoted to his work as ever, puncturing a style of music built to offer definitive answers with his own heavy brand of cosmic nihilism.

While there’s plenty of thrilling rock’n’roll here, his faith also gives us some flat-out gorgeous moments.

Dylan’s vocal is low in the mix, rendering certain lines difficult to discern, especially to anyone not already intimately familiar with his clever roster of creation stories he cooked up for so many critters. With the distance of nearly four decades, it’s possible now to look back at this period and recognize that yet again, the Bard from Hibbing, Minn., was doing what he’s done so consistently through all phases of his career: challenging orthodoxy.

There are treasures aplenty here, among them a rehearsal take on "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking" that seems to find the band jamming on the Rolling Stones' "Bitch" and two very different versions of "Caribbean Wind," an epic full of lust, divinity and a mystery that he never resolved. But there's also bitterness and stridency, as the restless spirit of "Like a Rolling Stone" stops dead on the Biblical literalism of "Solid Rock."

Trouble No More, more than Saved or even the fine Slow Train Coming, is buoyed by the music. Whether he's singing a slight song, easing into testimony, or leaning into a blues, Dylan seems engaged, even on the verge of rapture, an excitement that carries through the full live shows from 1980 and 1981 on the Deluxe Edition.