NRO Weekend, October 28-29, 2000 Issue
Jakob’s Ladder
Dylan Jr.’s Wallflowers are proving the skeptics wrong.

By Ben Domenech, NRO contributing editor---------btdome@wm.edu

t's been a long time coming, to say the least — four years have passed since The Wallflowers released an album. Their sophomore effort, 1996's Bringing Down the Horse, ranks as one of the most successful and critically acclaimed rock albums of the decade, racking up four number-one hit singles and winning a bevy of Grammys.

Still, it's been four years since the Wallflowers produced anything that wasn't for a movie soundtrack. Some skeptics had been whispering "fluke," saying the first hit record was just a shot in the dark, a success only because of lead singer and songwriter Jakob Dylan's famous name and intense blue-eyed good looks.

From the first chords of Breach, the Wallflowers prove the skeptics wrong. This album is deep, personal, introspective, and remarkably beautiful. It's a classic rock record, an album that echoes Tom Petty, Springsteen, and The Eagles with its blend of folk, blues, and 1960's pop sensibilities. All this combines for an experience that is nothing but pure American rock.

Dylan's songs are rich with images and anecdotes, telling tragic stories of romance on its painful last gasps; stories of mourners and murderers, sons who've been told they'd never amount to anything, and "flowers that bloom dead."

In the song "I've Been Delivered," Dylan sings wearily through the wonderful soaring hymn. You know that he's telling the truth.

Nothing's hard as getting free
From places I've already been

When it comes to songwriting, Jakob isn't his dad — not by a long shot — but this album, unlike Bringing Down the Horse, shows that, given time and more experience, he just might be.

These Wallflowers are using experience to their advantage, as well. They've matured — the band is more muscular and introspective, as suited to the galvanizing refrains of "Sleepwalker" ("Cupid don't draw back your bow/Sam Cooke didn't know what I know") as they are to the soft melodies of "Up From Under" ("I'm on top of the world again/but I'm looking up from under Babylon").

Dylan has proved his critics wrong, showing that his abilities have only just been tapped, singing with the gritty nonchalance of an arena-rock veteran or echoing Springsteen's somber Nebraska voice for a lumbering slow song.

Breach is an amazing album, full of slight beauty and great moments, where bitter memories slowly turn into resolutely lyrical choruses. When the dust settles, it may be that The Wallflowers may have just succeeded in reviving a long-comatose genre-introspective American rock and roll.