Pity the aging rockers. They keep making new albums, knowing that the new songs will never\u2014can never\u2014mean as much to their fans as the tunes they grew up with, and that younger listeners are more likely to steal their work than pay for it. Why bother?<\/p>\n
At some point, hopefully, it stops being about having to prove (or re-establish) anything, and regains some of the purity of intention it once had\u2014that drive to create, unburdened by expectations of any kind. Music for music\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n
Thirty-eight years into a remarkable career, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are hardly the next big thing, but since the 1994 departure of founding drummer Stan Lynch and 2002 exit of longtime bassist Howie Epstein (replaced by original bassist Ron Blair), the band\u2019s lineup has stabilized and produced a series of excellent tours and a pair of strong late-career albums in 2010\u2019s bluesy Mojo<\/i> and the new disc Hypnotic Eye<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Touted as a return to the band\u2019s harder-rocking roots, Hypnotic Eye<\/i> kicks off in fine heavy-boogie style with the thumping, ringing, anthemic \u201dAmerican Dream Plan B.\u201d \u201cLike a fool, I\u2019m bettin\u2019 on happiness,\u201d sings Petty, summing up the irrational optimism at the heart of the American character, \u201cI got a dream, I\u2019m gonna fight \u2018til I get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
As usual, most of the tunes are written solo by TP, but one\u2014typically a scorching rocker\u2014is a co-write with guitarist Mike Campbell. \u201cFault Lines\u201d does not disappoint; Campbell\u2019s lead guitar line is taut, snappy and memorable, and he and keyboard player extraordinaire Benmont Tench have a nice jam in the middle. The lyric is a dark, pointed self-examination of a complicated life. Up next, \u201cRed River\u201d is a hard-edged character sketch featuring a dreamy interlude that leads into a textbook surgical-strike solo from Campbell.<\/p>\n
\u201cFull Grown Boy\u201d is an interesting diversion, a mellow, jazzy ballad with the Heartbreakers (now also featuring Steve Ferrone on drums and Scott Thurston on guitar and harmonica) sounding more like a nightclub house band than they have in decades. It\u2019s but a brief interlude, though, as the album shifts back into overdrive with a powerful one-two-three punch. First is \u201cAll You Can Carry,\u201d a ringing rocker with a snaking, muscular guitar line and a plain-spoken message: \u201cTake what you can, all you can carry \/ Take what you can and leave the past behind.\u201d Then Petty snarls his way through \u201cPower Drunk,\u201d whose moody tension and Hammond organ accents hark back to the band\u2019s powerful 1976 debut. And \u201cForgotten Man\u201d opens with a hint of that familiar \u201cAmerican Girl\u201d galloping beat before turning harder and darker, as Petty cries \u201cI feel like a forgotten man\u201d and Campbell erupts into a scorching solo. <\/p>\n
Late-album highlight \u201cBurnt Out Town\u201d takes us back to a deep delta blues, as Petty does his best John Lee Hooker impression on the opening lines before lapsing into his normal singing voice as Thurston chugs along on harmonica. \u201cThey\u2019re dancing on glass ceilings while the filthy money flows,\u201d sings Petty, channeling Bill Maher over a thumping beat, \u201cAnd here I am stealing gas with a garden hose.\u201d <\/p>\n
Like most Petty discs, there\u2019s a bit of filler present; \u201cU Get Me High\u201d has a strong central riff but not much else going for it, \u201cSins Of My Youth\u201d feels more like one of Petty\u2019s languid midtempo solo numbers, and \u201cShadow People\u201d is a somewhat anticlimactic closer, a moody, repetitive bit of social commentary with only one really good line: \u201cHe\u2019s a 21st century man \/ And he\u2019s scary as hell, \u00a0\u2018cause when he\u2019s afraid \/ He\u2019ll destroy anything he don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul McCartney asked if you\u2019d still love him when he\u2019s 64. Tom Petty is celebrating his 64th<\/sup> year with a fresh set of songs that\u2019s full of both hard-fought wisdom and unquenchable fire. Hypnotic Eye<\/i> replies to the question of why with the only answer that rock and roll has ever offered: because we can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6253],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-43816","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-tom-petty-the-heartbreakers","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43816"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}