Time Out of Mind was a legitimate comeback, Bob Dylan's first collection of original songs in nearly ten years and a risky rumination on mortality, but its sequel, Love and Theft, is his true return to form, not just his best album since Blood on the Tracks, but the loosest, funniest, warmest record he's made since The Basement Tapes. His voice is shot, but he sounds warmer, more relaxed and old mr grumpy is as good humoured as on The Basement Tapes. Bob is in a wistful, elegiac, playful mood.