Being Jakob Dylan probably isn't as easy as it looks.

Oh sure, he's a rich, famous, handsome, successful rock star. But like any kid who goes into the family business, it's gotta be a grind sometimes trying to follow in the old man's footsteps. Especially when that old man is Bob Dylan -- poet, legend, icon, superstar, voice of his generation, yadda, yadda, yadda. Think about it: If you were little Willie Shakespeare Jr., would you really have the guts to try to earn your keep as a playwright?

Not only did Dylan the younger have the guts to try -- and the determination to pull it off -- but on Breach, his band The Wallflowers' third album and Jakob's most personal work yet, he also has the guts to embrace his musical heritage and discuss the difficulty of living in his father's giant-sized shadow. "You won't ever amount to much / You won't be anyone / Now tell me what you were thinking of? / How could you think you would be enough?" he asks himself on the revealing Hand Me Down, a thinly disguised interior monologue cloaked in a rootsy, slide guitar-topped jangle. "It's not that you've done something wrong / It's not your fault that you embarrass us all ... You feel good and you look like you should / But you will never make us proud."

Pretty revealing stuff from a guy who (like his father) usually delivers his messages wrapped in layers of camouflage to preserve his privacy. Why the big change? Who knows -- maybe he had a breakthrough in therapy. Whatever the reaon, he seems to have decided it's time to stop running away from his own DNA.

Not that Jake has suddenly strapped on the harmonica and started wheezing away. Sure, here and there on Breach, he delivers a line in a raspy whine that brings to mind ol' Zimmy. But hell, if anybody has a right to sound like Bob Dylan, it's his son. Besides, in truth, he reminds us more often of Warren Zevon, Tom Petty, Shaun Mullins and a handful of other singers who were also majorly influenced by Mr. Tambourine Man. Ditto for his music. With its burbling, swelling organ lines, relaxed, loping beats and rootsy acoustic guitars, Breach definitely comes across as the work of a man whose childhood lullabies included Like a Rolling Stone. But the new-wave pop-punk of Murder 101 makes it obvious that after lights out, he was listening to Elvis Costello (who fittingly supplies background vocals on the cut). As for singles, well, Breach doesn't have another One Headlight. But it does have plenty of highlights: the dark 'n' moody opener Letters From the Wasteland (with ex-Pixie Frank Black on backup vocals); the sombre California folk-pop of Witness and Up From Under; the quietly venomous love-gone-sour lament Some Flowers Bloom Dead. Speaking of lullabies, Jakob even delivers one of his own on the delicately sweet hidden track Baby Bird, crooning a simple, innocent melody over plink-plunky keyboards imitating a child's music box.

Obviously, Jakob still wants to be his own man. He as much as says so on the chiming, poppy single Sleepwalker. "Maybe I could be the one they adore / That could be my reputation," he thinks. But it seems that these days, he's willing to acknowledge that being his own man and being Bob Dylan's son aren't mutually exclusive.

That might be his gutsiest move yet.

Track Listing 1. Letters From The Wasteland
  2. Hand Me Down
  3. Sleepwalker
  4. I've Been Delivered
  5. Witness
  6. Some Flowers Bloom Dead
  7. Mourning Train
  8. Up From Under
  9. Murder 101
  10. Birdcage
  11. Babybird - (hidden track)