“Beyond Here Lies Nothing,” the first song on Bob Dylan’s 33rd studio album, “Together Through Life,” opens with a cool exchange of trumpet and electric guitar, over a brilliant circular drumline. Dylan’s voice emerges with style and authority. He sings about love. He sings about desolation. He sings about life. Somehow, even after a trilogy of masterpieces—1997’s “Time Out of Mind,” 2001’s “Love and Theft,’” and 2006’s “Modern Times”—it’s still a surprise to hear the legend at the height of power, singing with an authority that his age has finally caught up to. And why shouldn’t it be? Dylan’s always been measured by a unique standard, and now, pushing 70, he’s become the paradigm for the stately elder rock star. The song goes on, confirming the unalienable right to get excited about a new Bob Dylan album. The accordions that come in don’t distract, even if they don’t add very much, and altogether it’s sounding like another victory. But that’s as good as it gets.

“Together Through Life” is not a disaster. Dylan’s true disasters, like political putsches or catastrophic weather systems, draw a bewildering sort of fascination—think “Dylan & The Dead,” his born-again Christian phase, or the infamous “Self Portrait”—that this album never inspires in the listener. Mere failure seems a more appropriate categorization, but that would make the mistake of confusing expectations surrounding Dylan’s work—today or almost half a century ago—with the expectations for any other performer. Listen to enough Bob Dylan, and you’ll realize that none of his albums are failures. Some resonate with the public and some don’t, but every one of them is a record Dylan wanted to make in the moment: each is definitive in its own way. But “Together Through Life” is definitive in a way that is, at once, disappointing and unremarkable.

“Time Out of Mind” was more than a change in fortune for Dylan; it was a change in philosophy, and until “Together Through Life,” that fact was easy to forget. After two albums consisting entirely of folk covers on acoustic guitar, “Time Out of Mind” saw Dylan stepping away from a bare musician’s role and toward a more auteristic philosophy, prompted by Daniel Lanois’ production. The arrangements on that album were lush and spacious, propelled by lively performances from seasoned studio musicians—his tightest band since the mid-70s. Dylan produced the three albums that followed on his own (credited as “Jack Frost”) but he’s maintained the standard that Lanois set, framing his wry, enigmatic lyrics with an organic, energized sound anchored by longtime collaborator, bassist Tony Garnier.

But on “Together Through Life,” production easily outpaces songwriting, as Dylan’s ambition and lyrical wit fade palpably into monotony. His latter-day trilogy was a compelling mixture of urgency and ease, of innovative arrangements and sage-like lyricism. On this album, the studio approach is identical, albeit in the absence of that same inspiration. The presence of accordions and fiddles, or a slightly sharper guitar sound, doesn’t do much to thwart the dominant impression that we’re in distinctly familiar, necessarily more boring territory. Variations on the blues format have lately become fallbacks for Dylan, but they were always convincing before. Here, he doesn’t revive a blues aesthetic so much as he regurgitates its tropes on the awkward “My Wife’s Home Town,” or the downright embarrassing “It’s All Good,” both of which could have been just as palatable as their predecessors if they weren’t so generally lazy. Thankfully, these are the album’s lowest lows, but what distinguishes them from the remaining eight songs isn’t the degree of quality so much as the degree of care.

It speaks to the album’s ambivalence toward creative development that it’s brightest moments, other than the opener, distinguish themselves as strong contenders for spots on his previous records. “I Feel A Change Comin’ On” has all the charm and satisfaction of the more hopeful songs on “Modern Times,” with polished musicianship and a luxurious pace. “Shake Shake Mama,” a blues workout as simple as its title, would be right at home on “’Love and Theft.’” The remainder is largely more obvious mimicry—“Forgetful Heart,” a warmed-over, condensed version of “Ain’t Talkin’”; “Life Is Hard,” a sparer, more stilted version of “Spirit on the Water,” punctuated by more vaguely derivative, but equally middling material.

So “Together Through Life” is a regression, a forgetful footnote to the decade of Dylan’s critical resurgence. Even in this decade, Dylan’s catalog is so strong that its legacy can suffer one featherweight album, but what’s so frustrating about “Together Through Life” is that it simply didn’t need to be recorded. It’s a troublesome sign of what may be to come in the remainder of the man’s studio career, and what has already become of his skippable live act: stripped of any real novel artistic drive, “Together Through Life” seems driven by the bare will to perform.

—Staff writer Ryan J. Meehan can be reached at rmeehan@fas.harvard.edu.