Mojo (2010)

Mojo (2010)

Inspired by the Allmans, the Dead, and “the blues,” 2010’s Mojo was recorded live in the studio. At 15 tracks and 65 minutes, it is the longest album in the Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers catalog. Though the promise of an unpolished, warts-and-all document of one of the last great American guitar rock bands might seem an exciting prospect, The Heartbreakers are no jam band, and Petty is no Muddy Waters. As exhilarating a group of musicians as they are, the success of the Heartbreakers still hinges largely on Petty’s ability to craft great songs. Mojo is largely made up of the sort of clunking, hard luck rhythm and blues you might associate with a life or death game of billiards. Some of the slower tunes, like the nocturnal, yearning “The Trip To Pirate’s Cove,” the stoned and spooky “Something Good Coming,” and the epic and adventurous “First Flash Of Freedom,” really work, but these moments are fleeting. Nothing on Mojo is offensive (well, except for maybe the reggae-tinged “Don’t Pull Me Over”), and a handful of songs do manage to nail the sort of tension you might associate with authentic electric blues, but listening to a guitarist as inventive and singular as Mike Campbell resort to clichéd blues licks and pinch harmonics is more than mildly disappointing. Ironically, it is Mojo’s attempt at “authenticity” that results in the least convincing album in the Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers discography.