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Bob Dylan's 1976 release Desire is a unique album. It is both mellow and powerful at the same time. There's wide variation between the songs: there are personal ballads and upbeat travelogues. Desire features Dylan in some of his best vocal and song-writing form - Dylan's singing is good, the lyrics tell excellent stories and the musical arrangements are inspiring. However, it is the guests that distinguish this album from other Dylan offerings: Emmylou Harris's backing vocals are both beautiful and haunting, while Scarlet Rivera's violin cuts swathes through the album.

Most people know the opening track Hurricane - a well told story of wrongful imprisonment.

Isis is hypnotically repetitive and features one of my favourite lyrics of all time: `The wind it was howlin' and the snow was outrageous' - it kills me every time... snow outrageous?

One More Cup Of Coffee features exceptional interplay between Dylan, Harris and Rivera - Dylan invokes an ethnic spirit in his vocals and his guests weave in and out them, making a simple song incredibly rich. Until I hear the rest of the album, I always think this is my favourite song.

Joey is an epic tale (11 minutes) about the downfall of a mobster. The song feels like a movie - this is very vivid story telling and features some of my favourite lyrics. From the opening, humorous verse you can sense Joey's character. By the time the funeral comes around there's a sense that you've lost a close friend.

The closing track Sara is an evocative ode to Dylan's (soon-to-be-ex?) wife. Again, this is story telling at its best. This track also features marvellous interaction between violin and harmonica.

The rest of the album doesn't strike me as strongly as the above songs, but it certainly isn't just filler. This is a very good album. Although this album is generally Dylan in acoustic mode, it is more musically interesting than many of his other albums - Scarlet Rivera's violin provides more emotion that most electric guitarists are capable of. This is a snapshot of Dylan experimenting with something a bit different. It used to be one of my favourite albums. Now I just like it a lot.