The Wailing Wall's Jesse Rifkin has said that, despite an upbringing rooted in religion (a childhood spent on an ashram, a decade-plus spent attending an Orthodox Jewish day school), he didn't find any real value in the Bible until college. Rifkin's belated epiphany was hardly unique, but he does seem to have learned the smartest lesson from it: that no matter how seriously you take it, the Bible remains one heck of a yarn, its tales and metaphors readily applicable to all facets of life.
Indeed, Rifkin was reportedly inspired by a year of bad news, bad vibes, and setbacks to go back to the beginning-- the very beginning, as in, the Book of Genesis-- to make sense of himself and the world. The Low Hanging Fruit, the second album from his Wailing Wall project, is steeped in spirituality both specific and vague. But this is no Old Country kitsch fest. Rather, Rifkin goes deeper and broader, invoking the Bible as an anchor but opening up beyond the standard Judeo-Christian axis. Influences here include Qawwali drones and Hindu chants to go with his folk-rock echoes of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. To quote Rifkin, he's "in love with the poetry of the Bible."
There's an undeniable poetry to Rifkin's words as well, which certainly helps convey the personal nature of this particular musical journey. Admittedly, when it comes to pop culture, religion is the ultimate low-hanging fruit. A sprinkle of theology can easily, lazily convey a hint of import or profoundness even where none exists. But for all its time-tested signifiers, Rifkin's struggle to find meaning in life rings honest and compelling.
What's more impressive than Rifkin's introspective voyage, however, is the confident way he flits from tabla and sitar vibes on "Bones Become Rainbows" to the austere guy-with-guitar of "For C.M.R." (where he manages to out-nasal Dylan), or from the sunny folk-rock of "Dandelion" to the harmonium bliss of "Fear No Apple, Fear No Flood". These songs flow together with convincing inspiration. If the results themselves are ultimately less inspiring than they are admirable, that likely has less to do with Rifkin's craft and more to do with the album's meditative nature. After all, he's the one on the road to revelation. We're just the spectators, curious to learn where he finally ends up.
