Jakob Dylan - Seeing Things

Jakob Dylan is either immensely brave or immensely foolish. To pursue a solo career in the shadow of Dylan senior - and in an acoustic, country-blues style at that - must require great self-belief or gross ignorance of the implications. Because, let's be frank, under the family name the Wallflowers frontman is always going to be judged against pops, and he's never going to hit anywhere near those heights. This Rick Rubin-produced debut is a serviceable collection of simple, sparse campfire songs that take on the ol' themes of love, honour and adversity. In such stripped-back surroundings lyrics are important, but the Dylan poetry is obviously not genetic, and one of his lines - "you won't deliver a masterpiece" - is likely to prove all too prophetic. My unrelenting reference to his father's opus may be unfair, but the truth is that Jakob sounds uncannily like a watered-down Bob Dylan. Harsh but true. [Nick Mitchell]