New Bob Dylan Album For April?

Our magic 8-ball: "All signs point to yes."

By Fred Mills

RollingStone.com is reporting that sources close to Bob Dylan have indicated he has a new studio album, as yet untitled, headed for stores in late April. Apparently the bard, upon completing a song for filmmaker Olivier Daham (La Vie en Rose) for the film My Own Love Song, starring Renee Zellweger, was inspired to keep "writing and recording with his road band and guests."

The song in question, "Life is Hard," is described as "a bleak ballad with mandolin, pedal still and [Dylan] singing in a dark clear voice," while another song slated for the 10-track  album, "I Feel a Change Coming On," according to Rolling Stone, takes in "raw-country love songs, sly wordplay and the wounded state of the nation... the disc has the live-in-the-studio feel of Dylan's last two studio records, Love and Theft and 2006's Modern Times, but with a seductive border-cafe feel (courtesy of the accordion on every track) and an emphasis on struggling-love songs. The effect - in the opening shuffle, "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'," the Texas-dancehall jump of "If You Ever Go to Houston" and the waltz "This Dream of You" - is a gnarly turn on early-1970s records like New Morning and Planet Waves."

Keep your eyes peeled for more details soon.