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I have to say, when I first heard about this project and listened to the single online, my hopes were through the roof. It’s Tom Petty, of course it’s awesome. The experience is slightly deflating, then, to pop the disc in for the first time and hear not driving, keyboard-chaperoned, electric-guitar rock (as “Scare Easy” implied), but ditty-down-home twang guitar and an electric country vibe akin to the Eagles’ early material. This makes sense, as Tom Leadon shared a stroller with Eagles guitarist Bernie Leadon. But finally hearing the music, I can now buy the band’s back story that they moved to Hollywood in 1974 and tried to make it, only to find out there were crazier things going on than them. The album opens with the lively, twangy “Shady Grove,” which, upon first encounter, unexpectedly took me back to an old cassette tape I recalled – a collection of hammer-dulcimer folk tunes called Shakin’ Down the Acorns. This was the first taste of the deflation I mentioned earlier. Once the initial shock that you just bought a folk album wears off, though, solace can be found in the pretty, melancholy piano and guitar strains of “Crystal River” and the almost Rolling Stones-like swagger of “The Wrong Thing To Do,” which make the case that even though this isn’t the Heartbreakers, it’s still pretty damn good music. “Lover of the Bayou” restores some measure of rock ‘n’ roll darkness with its hulking chord progression and blistering solo guitar, and by the time “House of Stone” rides the album to a close on the back of a sway-back western pony, it only seems fair that this band should have its day in the sun. Had they had Petty’s name power when they first started, they probably would have exploded in the ‘70s. As much as twang gets on my nerves, I still hope they catch the wave this time around.  |
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