Breach

Jakob Dylan’s got it rough. Sure, the Wallflowers’ breakthrough album, Bringing Down the Horse, outgrossed several east African nations in 1996 and shut up all those expecting him to ride his daddy’s coattails straight to the special level of hell reserved for embarrassing rock offspring. (Are you feeling the heat, Julian Lennon and Carnie Wilson?) But now, four years later, Jakob and, um, those other guys must prove they can live up to another mighty legacy: their own. With Breach they accomplish this task and barely break a sweat in the process. Not so much a departure from the hummable roots-rock of the last record as an extension of it, Breach delivers a melancholic but instantly memorable batch of songs with almost effortless grace. While continued comparisons with his father’s work are inevitable, the melodic urban-blues of “Hand Me Down” and “Mourning Train” suggests Jakob has more in common with one of Bob’s buddies, Tom Petty. Elsewhere keyboards hijacked from the Close Encounters spaceship conspire with a banjo, a pedal steel guitar, and a flugel horn (yes, we checked the credits) to create the ambitious “I’ve Been Delivered.” At times it all feels a bit too polished, but that’s like complaining to the chef that there are no bones in your fillet. Just dig in and enjoy.