Album Reviews

Note: the impeccably packaged double 180g vinyl set just out (late November, '06), while still lacking top end shimmer and air, exudes an overall clarity, transparency and three dimensionality that leaves the CD far behind. And the bottom end rocks. The vinyl gets an "8" for sound.

Though it commences with “Saving Grace,” a John Lee Hooker crawlin’ king snake-riffed rocker, there’s less confrontation and more contemplation on Tom Petty’s tune-soaked new solo album. The “I Won’t Back Down” Petty of Full Moon Fever is gone, replaced by a more accepting, older observer of time and terrain passing.

Petty’s poetry is mature, compact and pleasingly diffuse compared to his last solo effort, often dealing with throwing off burdens, sometimes to return to old haunts and sometimes to make a new beginning. In “This Old Town” there’s regret for hanging around a place, in “Damaged By Love,” there’s pity for a girl stuck in time, unable to rebuild a broken heart.

Petty’s melodies captivate with new twists on familiar folk-rock riffs. On “Down South” Petty clearly reveals his inner-Dylan, with a tune that pays tribute to “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” by way of Al Kooper sitting in with The Traveling Wilburys, but it’s accomplished so deftly the familiarity doesn’t breed contempt. Likewise, when Petty sings the hook line “It took a long time….to get back here” on the exquisitely turned “Square One,” it and the rest of the tune has a maddening familiarity, but I can’t pin it down. Shins? Something current.

“Flirting With Time” sounds familiar too but that’s because Petty draws from his own well, with a hook by way of Paul Revere and the Raiders’ “Kicks.” There’s even an Arthur Lee tribute of sorts on “Jack,” with overtones of Bowie's "Golden Years." “Turn This Car Around” has a Petty hook surrounded by a Peter Gabriel (“Games Without Frontiers”) verse. “This Old Town” incorporates multiple songs that are just far enough removed from direct quotes to leave you twitching your head in recognition of something or other. I hear Jason Falkner’s “Author Unknown” in the chord structure. But that's just me.

Look, I don’t know if these tunes were on Petty’s mind when he wrote his. The point is, when you listen, you will hear any number of familiar musical gestures on almost every song. It’s inevitable. You’ll also hear a craftsman at work, plying his trade as effectively as any veteran rocker out there and making it as fresh as possible.

There are no misses on this 12 tune set. Jeff Lynne’s production fits the bill, built upon a bedrock of the familiar (slide and 12 string guitars) sprinkled with attention-getting production spices. When the tune calls for simplicity as on "Square One," Lynne backs Petty with solo guitar, a barely audible click-track like percussive and a triangle accent that makes all the difference.

As for the recording, we’ve gone from the cocaine-fueled piercingly bright and shrill ‘80s to the slightly crispy but commendably open ‘90s to the Pro-Tool gauzed, top end choked 21st Century. There is zero sizzle to the cymbals, and only slightly greater crack to the snares. Even the Rickenbacker 12 string sounds starved for harmonics and chiminess. There no jingle to the jangle and what’s a Petty album without it?

If you expect the sonic brilliance of Full Moon Fever you will be disappointed by the harmonic mush, the lack of brilliance and the difficult to define images. The production is far more effective on the simpler tunes.For instance, "Jack" works to sonic perfection. It's when Lynne packs the arrangements that the sound congeals.

That said, engineer Ulyate does an excellent job with the (Pro) tools at hand, tracking the instruments cleanly and mixing accordingly. It’s an intimate production that only suffers slightly from the suffocation. Oh, the bottom end is quite good.

You’ll probably find the sonics better-sounding than my words seem to indicate, but better you go in with low sonic expectations and come out pleasantly surprised.

Now I’m going to wait for someone on the inside to humiliate me with the news that it’s all analog! Perhaps it started that way, but clearly, Pro-Tools got in there somewhere. If not, let’s have the vinyl!!

Summing it all up: Tom Petty’s Highway Companion is a perfect mid-summer treat: light, easily assimilated, yet nourishing and substantial.