As the son of Bob Dylan, Jakob Dylan has a pair of large and probably quite fetid boots to fill, seeing as his dad is still plodding around most of Europe and America churning out the earnest folk music that earned him his place among the Sixties’ greats.
So it’s a brave move for Jakob to release Seeing Things, his first solo album after the break-up of his band The Wallflowers. The result is a sparse collection of guitar-led folk music not too dissimilar in style from the songs popularised by papa.
It’s fair to say that the album hasn’t received wildly positive reviews in the United States, with Rolling Stone calling it “competent folk rock”, complaining that Jakob lacked “the lyrical gift to augment these spare songs”. Fans on Amazon.com have been kinder, though, giving the album five-star reviews and praising songs such as the tuneful “Valley of the low sun” and ironic protest song, “War is kind”.
It’s his sixth album in total, and as The Wallflowers’ second record, Bringing Down the Horse, sold four million copies, twice as many as Dylan senior’s Blood on the Tracks sold in 20 years, it would be wise not to discount him yet.
