Jakob Dylan - Women And Country

Former frontman of 90s alternative rock band The Wallflowers, Jakob Dylan offers his second solo album by way of Women And Country, a sombre collection of contemporary songs that artfully blend country, folk, blues, gospel and rock under the auspices of legendary producer T-Bone Burnett.

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Teaming up with Columbia Records head Rick Rubin to produce his first solo outing, 2007's 'Seeing Things', Dylan has returned to T-Bone Burnett for its followup. Dylan and Burnett worked together previously on the seminal Wallflowers album 'Bringing Down The Horse', and the reunion in Women And Country 14 years on sees the two exploring very different territory.

T-Bone Burnett is a man that needs no introduction to any student of American roots music, with a storied four decade career that started as a guitarist on Bob Dylan's legendary Rolling Thunder Review in the mid-1970s. Today he is renowned as a producer of album after album of critically acclaimed work for a who's who of Americana. Burnett has also produced some of my favourite albums in recent years: 2007's 'Raising Sands' (Robert Plant/Alison Krauss), 2008's 'One Kind Favour' (B.B King), and 2009's 'Secret, Profane & Sugarcane' (Elvis Costello), so there are certainly big boots to fill.

If the title didn't give it away, I will; Women And Country is a lovesick journey into country and western. Accompanying Dylan's introspective lyrics and trademark smokey voice is a dark, brooding instrumentation. For the most part it's not the sort of upbeat country music you crank on the car stereo as you head west. Taking some cues in production style from Plant/Krauss' Raising Sands, Neko Case and Kelly Hogan deliver haunting backing vocals on eight of the album's eleven track. For the most part they stick clear of straight duets (though pleasant exceptions like Everybody's Hurting and Yonder Come The Blues are there) using the additional voices to adding a depth and distinct flavour to the sound that contrast perfectly with Dylan's understated delivery.

The dark Lend A Hand is a Tom Waits-esque composition, embracing this fact with longtime Waits and T-Bone Burnett collaborator Marc Ribot delivering his ubiquitous lead guitar style. Combined with a whiskey soaked horns section, the track sets into motion a dark duo as it is followed up with We Don't Live Here Anymore, a pulsating chaingang number with vivid banjo, fiddle and moody electric guitar flourishes creating a rich, scowling sound. As the mood slowly starts to lighten, Everybody's Hurting combines a steady Native American drumbeat with desolate instrumentation that puts this song somewhere on the moonlit plains of Montana.

They've Trapped Up Boys may be the most upbeat song you'll ever hear about a group of trapped miners, with a rousing chorus "Darker than ever in the mine / Shine a light, shine a light / Holler back now make some noise / I do believe they've trapped us boys" sprinked over the top of a light, mandolin-driven melody. The upbeat mood is maintained with the strong vocal delivery on the Nashville-tinged Smile When You Call Me That, leading into the foreboding album closer Standing Eight Count.

Jakob Dylan in Women and Country has chosen to neither directly embrace nor ignore the legacy of his father; his upbringing and heritage are what they are. The opening lines of Down On Our Own Shield, "It's a struggle, it's a scrape / It's all give and no take",  may well be a sly wink to Bob Dylan's 2001 masterpiece "Mississippi", but aside from an interest in exploring the roots of American music and occasional similarities in their lived-in voices, the younger Dylan carves his own territory, and for all the right reasons.

Dylan's low-key vocal delivery may not be for everyone, but in Women And Country, T-Bone Burnett has been able to mesh an overall sound with the vocals, without sacrificing the intricacies that 'Seeing Things' lacked. Women And Country is a wild, evocative album by an artist that has truly come into his own on the journey from bandleader to solo musician.