Where others have fallen victim to immense familial expectations (anyone seen Julian Lennon lately?), Jakob Dylan has looked history in the eye and not blinked. Four years ago Bringing Down the Horse pushed him from the abyss into the stratosphere. Breach, the Wallflowers' latest, boots him and the band further still. In a vastly more intimate set, Dylan breaks through the hype and delivers 11 songs that run the aural gamut from good old American pop to folk rock to field spirituals.
Dylan is joined by Wallflowers keyboardist Rami Jaffee, bassist Greg Richling, guitarist Michael Ward, and drummer Mario Calire, as well as a list of guest stars that is both immense and spectacular. (Though Calire is listed as a member of the band, Matt Chamberlin played the drums on every track.) Such studio legends as Jon Brion, Mike Campbell, Lenny Castro, and Greg Leisz play alongside the band, and Dylan shares background vocals with luminaries like Elvis Costello, Frank Black, Buddy Judge, Gary Louris, Chris Penn, and Michael Penn.
Last time around Dylan wrote of more universal themes, including loneliness ("I Wish I Felt Nothing") and heartbreak ("6th Avenue Heartache"), by shrouding his feelings in metaphors. On Breach the gloves are off and he puts his feelings on display. "Now another bad idea gets through/down the assembly line to you/you're every bridge I should have burned/every lesson I've unlearned," he sings on "Letters from the Wasteland." Set against a rumbling drum and bass line, as well as a sneaky B-3 tone, the song is part anthem, part confession.
"Sleepwalker," the standout first single, finds Dylan cynically hoping for stardom against an All-American musical backdrop complete with chorus handclaps. The ambitious "I've Been Delivered," which clocks in at a healthy five-plus minutes, sets a keyboard loop against his syncopated vocal pattern that hardly bends to a crescendo during the chorus. Thanks to the simple acoustic guitar treatment, Jaffee's haunting B-3, and some foot stomps, "Mourning Train" is entrancing.
Not one time does a song falter. This might be the most completely satisfying collection of modern day pop music in years.
