President プレジデント – 27 3月 2020

On his first LP of original songs in nearly a decade—and his first since reluctantly accepting Nobel Prize honours in 2016—Bob Dylan takes a long look back. Rough and Rowdy Ways is a hot bath of American sound and historical memory, the 79-year-old singer-songwriter reflecting on where we’ve been, how we got here and how much time he has left. There are temperamental blues (“False Prophet”, “Crossing the Rubicon”) and gentle hymns (“I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You”), rollicking farewells (“Goodbye Jimmy Reed”) and heady exchanges with the Grim Reaper (“Black Rider”). It reads like memoir, but you know he’d claim it’s fiction.And yet, maybe it’s the timing—coming out in June 2020 amidst the throes of a pandemic and a social uprising that bears echoes of the 1960s—or his age, but Dylan’s every line here does have the added charge of what feels like a final word, like some ancient wisdom worth decoding and preserving before it’s too late.

Black Swan is an all-star melodic hard rock ensemble featuring bassist Jeff Pilson (Dokken, Foreigner), vocalist Robin McAuley (McAuley Schenker Group, Survivor), guitarist Reb Beach (Winger, Whitesnake), and drummer Matt Starr (Mr. Big, Ace Frehley). Formed in 2019, the supergroup quickly inked a deal with Frontiers Records and issued the hard-hitting single "Shake the World." Their debut album, 'Shake the World,' an aptly titled album if ever there was one, is a delightful romp of powerful hard rock that is not simply the sum of its parts, but a powerful rock 'n roll machine.