The performance of " Forever Young" from Har'el's film was released as a standalone video on June 2, 2023. A review by Scott Bauer of the Associated Press praised the arrangements, noting how the "heavy dose of accordion and no drums" make the songs "sound fresh again". You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Shadow Kingdom presents Dylan performing revelatory 21st century versions of songs from his storied back catalog – including fan favorites like “Forever Young” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” and deep catalog gems like “Queen Jane Approximately” and “Wicked Messenger.

Uncut's Damien Love also invoked the work of Lynch, describing Shadow Kingdom as "deeply-felt surrealist-noir-Americana", as well as the paintings in Dylan's own "Beaten Path" series ("a handmade place of lost highways and forgotten barrooms and city lights in smeary rain; of lonely drive-in movie lots and funky diners and juke joints that all seem to float in some unfixed time that could be anywhere from the early-1930s to early tomorrow morning") and the Depression-era boarding-house setting of Conor McPherson's musical play Girl from the North Country. Drawn from a 2021 live stream with Dylan revisiting his past through the prism of his current sound. The album's cover photograph is a black-and-white still image of Bob Dylan playing the harmonica taken from the film Shadow Kingdom: The Early Songs of Bob Dylan, directed by Alma Har'el and shot by Lol Crawley. In 1962, however, a Bon Bon “supper club” in Philadelphia was the subject of a court case with Pat Lynn Hackett, a folk singer, accusing the owners of racketeering. Dylan has long treated his songs as standards, so compositionally robust as to be infinitely malleable, but the gravitas here is striking; as if the removal of the beats has removed the song from linear time.Bauer also claimed that the album "stands as a good retort for all the naysayers who have argued, seemingly from day one, that Dylan can't sing. Murky photos suggest the touring band, with light electric guitar on a bed of acoustics, with occasional accordian and pedal steel. This recording of a 2023 video presents songs from the first half of Dylan's career in radical reformulations. And what the subtitle described as ‘The Early Songs Of Bob Dylan’, reconfigured without drums to complement the liminal atmosphere of director Alma Har’el’s visuals. Impression de beauté, de poésie, une envolée hors du temps et des temps tourmentés de ce triste 21ème siècle.

Empire also compared the Bon Bon club's atmosphere to "the vibe of the sleeve art of last year’s Rough and Rowdy Ways". Shadow Kingdom presents Dylan performing revelatory 21st century versions of songs from his storied back catalog – including fan favorites like "Forever Young" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," and deep catalog gems like "Queen Jane Approximately" and "The Wicked Messenger. Musicians were listed at the end of the livestream – among them Shahzad Ismaily on accordion, and Big Thief’s Buck Meek, though none of Dylan’s road band – but aren’t mentioned in the album credits.Shadow Kingdom debuted at number 71 on the Billboard 200 but was the seventh best-selling album in the US during its first week of release based on pure album sales.