Folks are so relieved Hypnotic eye isn’t the dreaded Mojo, they are overestimating it. Myself included. It took quite a few listens for me to realize that there isn’t any great songs, well, maybe “Fault Lines”, but aren’t any other great songs on the classic rock reboot.
Kicking off with the political ho hum but nicely smashed up “American Dream Plan B” and following it with the aforementioned self portrait “Fault Lines” -a nice little metaphor from L.A. and the all guitar licking electric “Red River” -a sort of pure Heartbreakers rocker, co-written by Mike campbell, like everything always is.
But then the album can’t quite pull out of itself, instead we get one low grade rocker after another and with exceptions, “Full Grown Boy”, “All You Carry”, “Sins Of My Youth” and more are just pleasant vamps, pleasant to play live but no more than that: there is something very minor pretending to be major about it, a sort of refusal to stand up and be counted. “Burnt Out Town” has a great break and a mean harp but it is in service to a ppor song. The Heartbreakers sound good, Petty has a great voice, but nothing gels because the songs are the typical late period mediocrities.
It ends with one of the worst tracks, “Shadow People” -another blues vamp with nothing much happening and another disappointment. when Petty and his band are not on their game they can be astonishingly boring. This isn’t that bad, it isn’t ;s Mojo, but it is missing a big big song to sail in on and in the end it is all a little shrugged filled.
Grade: B
