There\u2019s just something about old friends: they knew you when, and there\u2019s no pretending they didn\u2019t. Reconnecting after time has gone by can be a uniquely rewarding experience.<\/p>\n
Considering that this is the first of two albums that Tom Petty would cut with his reunited-30-years-later original group Mudcrutch, it seems safe to say that he would agree. Here, as in the original early \u201970s precursor to the Heartbreakers, Petty plays bass and sings alongside Mike Campbell (guitars), Benmont Tench (keys and vocals), Tom Leadon (guitars and vocals) and Randall Marsh (drums).<\/p>\n
The resulting album functions like a catalogue of the five men\u2019s musical influences, from traditional, almost bluegrass-y Americana numbers like opener \u201cShady Grove\u201d to their swampy blues-rock reinterpretation of the Byrds classic \u201cLover Of The Bayou.\u201d (The former in fact reminds how much of a bluegrass influence there was under the surface of the Traveling Wilburys, with Petty and Bob Dylan in particular showing those proclivities.) <\/p>\n
Petty and Leadon also share lead vocals on \u201cShady Grove,\u201d a sign of the more democratic structure of Mudcrutch; later on, Leadon sings lead alone on his countrified romp \u201cQueen of The Go-Go Girls\u201d and Tench does the same with his roadhouse boogie number \u201cThis Is A Good Street.\u201d The variety is refreshing yet also telling; Leadon and Tench\u2019s approaches to their vocals bear an unmistakable resemblance to Petty\u2019s, who for his part playfully adopts the guise of a number of his favorite vocal characters through the course of the album.<\/p>\n
Snarly, drawling TP makes an early appearance on \u201cScare Easy,\u201d a sort of swampy rewrite of \u201cI Won\u2019t Back Down\u201d (\u201cI don\u2019t scare easy for no one\u201d) that Campbell puts an exclamation point on with one of his trademark stinging solos. \u201cOrphan Of The Storm\u201d calls back to Wildflowers<\/i> with its ambling country-rock, while the cover \u201cSix Days On The Road\u201d delivers a Petty-flavored taste of roadhouse boogie (\u201cSix days on the road \/ Gonna see my baby tonight\u201d). <\/p>\n
Dreamy, pensive TP gets a showcase in the mid-tempo epic \u201cCrystal River,\u201d setting a mood and working the groove for nine and a half minutes. The group\u2019s instrumental interplay is the real star here, though, as Campbell and Leadon\u2019s subtle, lilting guitar lines intertwine while Tench\u2019s piano decorates the fringes, leading up to a big, spacy slide solo.<\/p>\n
Other musical frames tried out by this oh-so-capable quintet include a gentle love song (\u201cOh Maria\u201d), tasty Stones-adjacent blues-rock (\u201cThe Wrong Thing To Do,\u201d full of classic Petty vocal sass), full-on country (Leadon\u2019s aforementioned \u201cQueen\u201d), a jangly, Byrds-y traditional instrumental (\u201cJune Apple\u201d), bright, upbeat country-tinged rock (\u201cTopanga Cowgirl\u201d), and a CSN-by-way-of-the-Wilburys back-porch acoustic jam (closer \u201cHouse Of Stone\u201d). <\/p>\n
Still, the highlights come in moments as disparate as the expansive, entrancing \u201cCrystal River\u201d and the heavy blues of \u201cLover Of The Bayou,\u201d punctuated by a bold, Cream-like solo. Despite sharing three-fifths of their membership, the only time Mudcrutch sounds just like the Heartbreakers is on the penultimate \u201cBootleg Flyer,\u201d with Petty delivering one of his distinctive almost-spoken-word verses and Campbell ripping it up at the solo.<\/p>\n
Mudcrutch<\/i> the album proved that, while you might not be able to go home again, you can get the old gang back together and have a pretty good time. Petty\u2019s work with the Heartbreakers had grown a bit dour on the preceding Echo<\/i> and The Last DJ<\/i> albums; comfortably ensconced among old friends here, he seems to relocate the joy of making music and it\u2019s great to hear him and the rest of the band cut loose and embrace the moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8276],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46788","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mudcrutch","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46788","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=46788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46788"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46788"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}