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It's not news that these guys rock, but on their first new album in eight years the Heartbreakers have their Mojo working like they never have before-which is a fine thing indeed.
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While 12-bar twang, mean girls, and swampy harmonicas do populate the track list, Mojo is a rock record — and a good one at that.
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The performances are natural knockouts – cocksure grooves, pithy knife-play guitars and little overdub fuss – worked up, then nailed, some on the first full take, at the band's suburban Los Angeles rehearsal space. Petty can't help stressing the authenticity here.
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It has some of the most well-written songs he’s released since at least as far back as 1985’s Southern Accents and, song for song, it maybe the finest recording of the band’s career.
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MojoTom Petty's turned his attention to a resume of his life so far -- 15 crunching, clever, moving tracks that make his earlier point far better, indicting the rest by breezy example. [July 2010, p. 96]
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The album may be the loosest of his career, an unfussy, shuffle-mode assortment of blues-infused jams and steel guitar-haunted ballads that abandon the structural perfection that shaped his canon.
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Q MagazineA bluesy, guitar-heavy record just like they used to make, then. What's not to llike? [Aug 2010, p.124]
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Tuneful and gently flowing, Mojo is endowed with the qualities diehards expect from Tom ''Watch Me Rock Out Without Breaking a Sweat'' Petty. What it lacks is instant classics (didn't he used to be good for a few per album?).
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These aren’t classic Petty songs, but they are sturdy vehicles for a terrific, if frequently underrated band.
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While there are still nods to the Heartbreakers’ 1980s bigness here, and to the bigness of others, they’re offered in an offhand style.
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Petty is a talented enough fellow to make even the most routine roots-music exercise sound lively and deeply felt—especially with Mike Campbell pumping out clean-burning guitar solos beside him—but while Mojo is amiable enough, it rarely sounds vital.
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It's slightly indulgent at more than an hour long, but more likely that's just Petty's way of offering love for what his ageless band can do.
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UncutUnfortunately, and rather ironically, Mojo is ultimately undone by the very virtuosity of its creators: the band stumbles repeatedly into that musican's trap of making music that sounds intended principally to impress other musicans. [July 2010, p.102]
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The playing is solid, but one wishes Petty & the Heartbreakers had simply covered some of those old Chess classics rather than trying half-heartedly to write their own -- it would have made for an album closer to intent.
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Mojo sees Petty steep himself in Americana again, adopt a live-in-the-studio feel, and generally rock out. The results are initially quite perky, as the band crash and charge through songs, but after a couple of plays everything becomes rather dull.
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The record is long on instrumentals and short on singing, with Petty showing up mostly to fill space between guitar solos and extended jams, giving Mojo a higher Heartbreakers-to-Petty ratio than any previous release. But if Mojo is meant to be the band's showcase, it's not an especially successful one.
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Petty’s classic pop knack, breezy melodies and laid-back drawl take a back seat to Campbell’s meandering, jammy solos and the album’s overwhelmingly old-guy-blues sound.
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And in Don't Pull Me Over – a plea to a police officer for clemency over marijuana possession, set to an Eric Claptonesque vision of reggae – Petty may have written the worst song ever.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 21 out of 27
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Mixed: 5 out of 27
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Negative: 1 out of 27
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CodyT.Jun 17, 2010
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LeoTJun 17, 2010WOW! These guys never disappoint. highly recommended.
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AndyBJun 16, 2010Possibly the most honest blues album i've heard in a very long time. The honesty that presents itself in every track is incredible.