Hypnotic Eye (2014)

Hypnotic Eye (2014)

The moment any suspicion arises that a prestigious catalog artist like Tom Petty has become irrelevant, a familiar hyperbolic scramble takes place: every subsequent new album is described by dutiful critics as a “return to form” as a means of keeping asses in the proverbial seats. This is PR legerdemain at its most hopelessly transparent. It is not enough for an artist like Tom Petty to make a very good album; it must be his best since the album before all the previous ones we didn’t like. Hypnotic Eye, released last week to mostly positive reviews, is a very good Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers album. It blends the live, bluesy sound of Mojo and the songwriting heights of Echo, and it is unmistakably the finest album this group of sexagenarians could have possibly been expected to make in 2014. Highlights abound: The rousing and heartfelt “Fault Lines”; the mellotron-abetted mood piece “Sins Of My Youth”; the smoky blues nocturne “Full Grown Boy”; the dark and quixotic “Red River.” Even the weaker numbers here, like the artless “U Get Me High” or the drooling, drawling “Burnt Out Town,” are more harmless fun than momentum-killers. Obviously, it is almost impossible to rank the just-released Hypnotic Eye within a larger continuum of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers albums; it’s here at #11 simply because today it sounds better than #12 but not as good as #10. But time has a way of shuffling these numbers around, and if Hypnotic Eye proves to be Petty and The Heartbreakers’ final album, we reserve the right to advance it a few notches simply for ending on such a high note.