Album review: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Hypnotic Eye

Tom Petty and his band don't quite return to form.

Most rock fans agree TP and his cracking Heartbreakers had a decade-long dream run after their self-titled debut in 76. Their taut Beatles/Byrds pop-rock welded to a nuggetty rock 'n' roll attitude and Petty's economic songs made their albums sound like collections of snappy singles. And when this Florida-native expanded into Southern Accents (the title of their impressive sixth album), they seemed unstoppable.

But Petty prematurely aged by becoming a Traveling Wilbury, working with his heroes mostly a decade his senior. Petty's edge was smoothed off for country-rock and on subsequent TP/H albums, despite some successful singles, he often coasted across songs written as acoustic chugs.

Little in the past decade has possessed a vital spark (the 2009 Live Anthology however showed what a great stadium band they could be) and the TP/H album Mojo four years ago was a shapeless affair.

This new one is being hailed as more hot-wired, but that's wishful thinking. When the band are given their head this sounds promising, especially on the passably brusque openers American Dream Plan B and Fault Lines (even if musically self-referential). And the politicised closer Shadow People has a low, mildly menacing funk-rock feel (somewhere between Lennon's I Want You and Petty's brooding songs from Southern Accents) which neatly reverts to moody minimalism at the midpoint of its six-plus minutes.

But between those bookends are some indifferent songs: All You Can Carry is studio-cum-stadium rock-by-numbers; Forgotten Man refers back to their debut but Petty is unconvincing despite the committed band; Sins of My Youth has an interesting sentiment ("I love you more than the sins of my youth") but Petty makes it sound like a lesser George Harrison/Nelson Wilbury off-cut.

U Get Me High is unmemorable. Power Drunk has a spook-voodoo swamp feel but -- like Full Grown Boy which has a slithering jazzy attitude, guitarist Mike Campbell confirming on each that he's the star player -- both sound beamed in from other albums entirely. Petty connects with 60s Dylan in the surreal blues of Burnt Out Town though, but it's deja-heard.

So the patchy Hypnotic Eye isn't quite the return to form you might be reading about elsewhere.

But you'd always want to hear the Heartbreakers, a band which rarely fails to deliver.

Verdict:

Something old, something blue, some things borrowed, but not a lot new

Click here to buy Hypnotic Eye by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

- TimeOut / elsewhere.co.nz