4 keepers
keeper avg .363
For my money Tom Petty started to get more interesting in his last decade than at any previous time of his life, starting with interpreting Bo Diddly on "Saving Grace" from Highway Companion through embracing the blues on Mojo. The first song I heard on what was to be his final album, Hypnotic Eye, was the hard-driving "Fault Lines"***** and I was floored by the ferocity of Petty and Mike Campbell's stinging guitar riffs (both wrote this one) over Steve Ferrone's crashing bossanova beat. Petty deploys another fifth interval riff attack on "Red River"**** ("First Flash Of Freedom" from the previous album was the template), used to potently emphasize mysterious lines such as "A tiger tooth and a gris-gris stick, Still it don’t do the trick"; Petty uses a similar device (using riffs to emphasize lines of the verses) in the more-driving "All You Can Carry"****. Petty transcends his typical pop-rock style, sliding from a blues-y groove into a dramatic but restrained bridge section on the laid-back, perhaps prescient "Power Drunk"****; the jazz lounge-y "Full Grown Boy" provides an elegant break right in the middle of the very strong album half, while the dream-like "Sins Of My Youth" is almost ethereal enough to be Radiohead. Petty's inner garage band rocker does lead him astray sometimes like on monotonous album opener "American Dream Plan B" and the dumbed-down Stones-imitating "U Get Me High." And he seems to split the difference, rocking out the blues as hard as possible on the goofy "Burnt Out Town" (at one point drawling "aw look out now!"). The album closes with Benmont Tench's placid piano theme introducing Petty at his most apprehensive. He insight-fully describes the widespread feeling of isolation and mistrust, observing the "Shadow People" in the next car over "Could be thinking of love, might be thinking of hate......That one's thinking of great art and eloquent words, That one's strapped on a gun and joined up with the herd." Though it ends on a high note it's disturbing because it's true. RIP Charlie T. Wilbury, Jr.
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