During the alt-rock gold rush of the 1990s, the Wallflowers didn’t quite belong to the grunge or burgeoning Americana camps, but they benefited from the abundance of guitar bands. They arrived during the radio heyday of both Pearl Jam and Hootie & the Blowfish, so there was an audience primed for their strum-and-jangle. With its enduring singles “One Headlight,” “6th Avenue Heartache” and “The Difference,” 1996’s quadruple-platinum Bringing Down the Horse provided the foundation for frontman Jakob Dylan to lead various incarnations of the Wallflowers through lineup changes and extended hiatuses, negotiating slight shifts in fashion without abandoning the group’s adherence to the basic building blocks of rock’n’roll: guitar, bass, and drums, all given dimension by whirls of Hammond organ.
Exit Wounds, the group’s first album in nine years and only their seventh record in nearly 30, doubles down on these basics, offering an album that could in many ways have been released somewhere in the mid-1990s. Dylan is the only original member from the days of Bringing Down the Horse, so the consistency in sound and aesthetic is surprising. Revisiting old Wallflowers records makes it apparent how much he struggled with a desire to modernize their trad-rock to suit the times—2002’s Red Letter Days has a discernibly glassy electronic sheen—and his instinct to forge ahead on a well-trodden path.
No attempts to reckon with contemporary fashion are apparent on Exit Wounds. Working with a lineup he assembled toward the end of the 2010s, Dylan seems comfortable playing the same kind of highway ballads and Saturday afternoon rockers he’s been writing for decades. His voice bears slight leathery undertones that are highlighted by the Wallflowers’ soulful Americana, like in the opening track “Maybe Your Heart’s Not in It No More.” The song provides an ideal opening salvo for the record: the group’s confident groove is offset by Dylan’s modicum of middle-aged introspection, a sentiment that’s echoed through many of these songs. Dylan balances these moments of doubt with wry self-deprecation, a tendency that’s pushed to the forefront on “I’ll Let You Down (But Will Not Give You Up).” This blend gives his straight-ahead songs a slight lift. He’s arriving at familiar destinations through detours, not the main road.
Call it wisdom, call it maturity, but the depth of experience deepens the traditionalism of Dylan’s music; he’s grown into the clothes he’s been wearing all his life. To that end, he is assisted greatly by the production of Butch Walker, another old-school rock’n’roll lifer who knows which elements of Dylan’s music to accentuate. The leanness of Exit Wounds is a bit deceiving. It may sound unrushed but the simple, direct arrangements give the record a pulse of subdued energy. Keyboards soften the harder edges of the guitars, Americana singer Shelby Lynne provides harmonies throughout, and the rhythms are supple even when they’re straightforward. Every detail adds not only texture but also character.
None of Walker’s brushstrokes are surprising but they do accentuate Dylan’s personality. He’s got a slightly surly disposition that camouflages an open heart; it’s hard not to see his bruises when he sings “set myself on fire keeping you warm” on “Roots and Wings.” Like Tom Petty, Dylan prefers small gestures to grand statements, finding the emotional truth within a clever turn of phrase like “the dive bar in my heart.” This modesty has been one of Dylan’s gifts since the beginning, when he was attempting to write songs that felt like they’ve been kicked around for years. Now that he’s gotten some mileage under his belt, his songwriting feels sharp and his collaborators sound at ease. On Exit Wounds, the Wallflowers finally turn into the classic rock band they always ached to be.
Buy: Rough Trade
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