Verdict: Petty and co prove they can play the blues. Who knew? What's more, who cares?
Tom Petty was last heard getting his pre-Heartbreakers band - the delightfully named Mudcrutch - back together in the studio for a rowdy reunion set.
Featuring Heartbreakers' keyboardist Benmont Tench and guitarist Mike Campbell, it made for a solid Petty album. This time, he's reassembled his hit squad for theirfirst album together in eight years. In recent times there has also been the solo Petty Highway Companion album and the 2007 DVD doco/book Runnin' Down a Dream.
So lots of looking back ... and while Mojo is all new songs and the first album from Petty and band for eight years, it has the air of something vintage too. And frankly, it smells a bit musty.
For as the name suggests, Mojo is largely a blues album. There are some notable exceptions, the worst of them being Don't Pull Me Over, a reggae track with Petty hoping he won't get busted for what's in his car, when he really should realise that's the music police in his mirror, not the drug squad.
But that's not the only of the 15 tracks that is rolling stoned - this is an album big on as-long-as-it-takes ambling and bleary-eyed boogie reminding, possibly, of Petty's southern roots, but also bereft of much to remember it by song-wise.
It does kick up some dust on on I Should Have Known, a song which throws Led Zep-riffery underneath Petty's increasingly Dylanesque vocals. And on a few tracks, like the country-blues of US41 and the slow swampy stomp of Takin' My Time, this gains some grit and spark.
But there's not much of either elsewhere on these 15 songs. And as the new seemingly long-awaited new Heartbreakers album, well it sure makes a pretty good advertisement for Mudcrutch.
