"Big Weekend" is a fun, chugging song with the unmistakable sounds of Petty's shining Rickenbacker guitar. The clever "Down South" and "Turn This Car Around" use chords rarely heard in popular music these days while "Jack" has a surfer vibe to it complete with a rare Petty guitar lead. "Down South" might be the best story Petty has ever spun even if it, like many songs on HC, is a little weak in the chorus.
"Square One" is a jewel of a tender ballad that would sound more at home on Highway Companion were it sequenced elsewhere on the album. The line "Always had more dogs than bones" reminds me favorably of "And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls" from Counting Crows' "A Long December."
Highway Companion is an album of subtleties and that might be its main drawback. The album straddles the line of being subtle and sedate. There are not a lot of big hooks and memorable choruses. Petty still sounds like he is holding back even on the most rollicking moments. Some very good midtempo, contemplative songs on the album are bogged down just a little because the most rocking songs on the album barely go beyond a nice shuffle or boogie. The album could have used a little more sonic variety.
After 30 years, it has become clear Tom Petty is incapable of making a truly bad record. I know a lot of people took the piss out of The Last DJ but that is their loss. A lot of bands would be damn lucky to never make a record any worse than that. Highway Companion, when stacked up against his other albums, compares nicely but it does not jump to the top of the list. How important is it for an artist to make their best album every time they release an album? Not very - at least when you are Tom Petty. Highway Companion is not the best album of his career but it will be one of the best of 2006.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
nice review. i'm actually not super familiar with the other Petty solo releases, but i know what you're getting at by this record's "laid-back-ness".
still, i liked the sparse quality of it. especially with much of today's super-compressed rock sounds.
2 - DJRadiohead
Wildflowers was a solo record produced by Rick Rubin and it had more diversity in terms of the kinds of songs on the album. Wildflowers is also probably the best thing he has ever done. FMF probably had a little bit better blend of tempos and styles.
The laid-back approach does not bother me and it works here because the songs are mostly good-to-great. I do think the album would have been better served with a little more diversity but there is nothing wrong with HC. It's a more meditative album than I had expected but I like listening to it.
3 - Mark Saleski
i'll have to get those other two records....after i get the first three Cheap Trick records and after.....
4 - Vern Halen
Dead on review. The songs are well written, but mostly move along at a walk, when there could have been at least a couple that jogged, and a couple that sprinted.
5 - Tom Johnson
Great piece, DJRadiohead. I love this album. I put it right up there with the Lynne-produced albums, which I listen to a lot and, aside from Wildflowers, I just don't find myself wanting to listen to much else of Petty's - this sound is what I want and need from him. I'm very glad to get more from him and that it's just not a rehash of what he's done before. A definite favorite of the year, and I've already got a growing list of those . . .
6 - DJRadiohead
Thanks, guys. I was talking about this album with a friend last night and he said he read a review that said it was a combination of Wildflowers and Nebraska. I thought that was an interesting comparison. The characters in this album, something I didn't touch on as much as I might have liked, all seem to be retracing their steps. I think there is a very heartland/Nebraska vibe to it. It is interesting, anyway.
7 - Martin Lav
This is a very solid album that tends to grow on you. I don't feel the hooks so much, but I really like it's easy style and professional delivery. Although not as evocative as Neil Youngs Harvest Moon, I'd say the mood and style is sandwiched right in the middle/later years of both these exceptional artists varied careers and are quite similar.
8 - tink
Somehow this release got past my radar...I can see (eerrr, read?) that was a HUGE mistake on my part.
Anxious to go check it out...
tink
9 - DJRadiohead
Tink, I think you will like this one. It stands strong in his catalog- a very strong album.
10 - Connie Phillips
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One such site is here.
11 - Connie Phillips
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12 - DJRadiohead
Thanks, Connie!
13 - tink
Oh...I am definitely going to...have been a Petty fan (solo and w/Heartbreakers) fan since the late 70's when the band used to play on the Sunset Strip. Of course, I was only 3 years old then...
Really, TP has never let me down before...and from what you say, he won't this time either!!!