Having the legend that is Bob Dylan as your father certainly gives you big boots to fill so what to do? I guess it's simple really you just don't try to as it's never going to happen, so instead you just go about trying to do your own thing in the vain hope that people will recognise it for what it is and take you on as yourself instead of because of who you are.
Jakob Dylan doesn't really remind me of his father's style - sure it's gravely and acoustically led with plenty of heart and lyrical meanderings - but Dylan is much more reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen if you close your eyes and concentrate you could just picture it being Springsteen who sings "
Snow covered beaches and junkyards of diesel/And bombers named after girls" in '
Valley Of The Low Sun' about the war in Iraq.
Produced by Rick Rubin who gives it the same treatment applied to Johnny Cash for the American Recordings and '
Seeing Things' wholly acoustic plateau really evokes the spirit of Cash - it's difficult to dismiss the comparisons to Dylan's predecessors and I'm sure he'd be first to admit their influence on his writings for tracks such as '
War Is Kind' (about the strengthen of family relationships during wartime), '
All Day And All Night' (highlighting the life of the working man), and '
This End Of The Telescope' very much the autobiographical centre-piece of the album (despite being the final track) it's a wonderful song about Dylan's up-bringing and his place in the world ending on the line "
I see clear at last, I love, I loathe/On this end of the telescope.".
Despite the struggle of the shadow of his father,
Jakob Dylan makes an album that shows his own strengths and abilities and could easily place him in the bracket of early 21st century Bob Dylan's.
Track-listing:
1. Evil Is Alive And Well
2. Valley Of The Low Sun
3. All Day And All Night
4. Everybody Pays As They Go
5. Will It Grow
6. I Told You I Couldn't Stop
7. War Is Kind
8. Something Good This Way Comes
9. On Up The Mountain
10. This End Of The Telescope
Website: jakob dylan | seeing things 
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Jakob Dylan - Seeing Things (Album)
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