Petty and his band have delivered a solid, but not wholly exceptional, batch of songs propelled by sharp lyrical themes and a clear vision. But expectations are also lower, and in spots, it’s noticeable. Petty’s reached a point where he doesn’t need to worry about hits, no doubt a liberating position in which to create. “What keeps any song on Hypnotic Eye from matching “American Girl” or “The Wild One, Forever” is quality of songwriting, which shouldn’t necessarily come as a shocker. “ Hypnotic Eye is being talked about as a return to the sound of gumshoe Petty as heard on 1976’s Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and 1978’s You’re Gonna Get It! This is partly true,” says Consequences of Sound‘s Julian Ring in his more mixed review. It’s his catchiest, most sharply focused album in years.” Says The New York Daily News‘ Jim Farber: “The album recalls the formal song structures, chiseled tunes and hard-rocking momentum of yore. Petty soon arriving to yowl: ‘I’m gonna make my way through this world someday/I don’t care what nobody say.'”

‘American Dream Plan B’ opens the album with just a drumbeat and distorted, choppy guitar chords, with Mr. Petty clearly staking out characters and situations. “Nearly every song on Hypnotic Eye puts its main riff right up front, followed by Mr. “The new album is a return to lucidity after the sometimes generic blues-rock and haphazard lyrics of Mojo,” says The New York Times‘ Jon Pareles. “On Hypnotic Eye, the 63-year-old and his eternal Heartbreakers return to the scrappy heat of those early days with their toughest, most straight-up rocking record in many years, deepened by veteran perspective,” he says. In his four-star review, Rolling Stone‘s Jon Dolan agrees. At the very least, he’s not one of those unfeeling, self-oriented, materialistic ‘Shadow People’ he sniffs at in the final track,” says Partridge. He’s done some things he’s maybe not proud of (see: “Sins of My Youth”), but come out with his soul intact.

“Singing over punchy backings sure to get folks reminiscing about Damn the Torpedoes and Hard Promises, two of his early classics, Petty takes stock of his life, thumbs his nose at cops and parents, and decides he’s happy chasing his foolish rock ‘n’ roll dreams.

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