Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - Echo

Echo is the tenth studio album by American rock band Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, originally released in April 1999 by Warner Bros. Records.

Echo is the tenth studio album by American rock band Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, originally released in April 1999 by Warner Bros. Records.

Echo was Petty’s first full-fledged album with the Heartbreakers since 1991's Into The Great Wide Open, and is in a sense an extension of his 1994 solo album Wildflowers, at least in terms of sound and feel. The weird thing is, Echo sounds like a sinewy band recording, but its sentiment makes it feel like a solo record.

Petty and the Heartbreakers define classic guitar rock better than just about any working band. The straw-haired singer obsessively revisits the same territory in album after album, with the same cast of backing musicians; guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench have been with him since the Heart-breakers' debut, in 1976, even guesting on Petty's "solo" albums.

Echo, is a striking reassertion of what Petty and the boys do best. After a couple of albums - especially Wildflowers (1994) - on which Petty sounded like he was easing off the pedal and settling for a midlife career of singer-songwriter introspection, Echo put the Heartbreakers back where they belong: in the garage and in front of the amplifier stacks.

From the opening bars of first song “Room At The Top”, Petty touches on a theme that recurs on most of his albums: independence in a world that won't easily allow it.  It sets the tone for the rest of the album, with the singer in the role of the perpetual outsider.

Throughout Echo, life is a constant struggle to define what matters. Which makes Echo feel, above all, like a defiant album. This music drills home one unmistakable point: If rock is becoming a dead language for a new generation of listeners obsessed with hip-hop, no one bothered to tell Petty's band about it.

Its most ferocious moments include "Free Girl Now", "Won't Last Long", "I Don't Wanna Fight", "About To Give Out" – which also earned the album a subtext as Petty’s divorce album.

"Free Girl Now" sounds like a band was handed electric guitars after six months stuck listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber; the Heartbreakers don't so much play the riff as pound it gleefully into the concrete. Petty uncages the nasty Florida drawl first heard on "Breakdown", from his debut album; his voice drags a teasing, insinuating half-step behind the walloping, single-minded four-to-the-floor rhythm.

Even more elemental is "I Don't Wanna Fight", in which Campbell wrenches the lead vocals away from Petty and sounds like he's in no hurry to give them back. On "Won't Last Long" and "About To Give Out", Petty returns the favour.

What gives Echo its resonance, however, is the softer stuff. These tunes also pack a bite, in large part because the unfussy production never speaks louder than the songs. Campbell focuses on riffs rather than solos, with bluesy guitar accents on "Counting On You" and rich progressions on "Accused Of Love". Tench's piano and organ fills hover in the spaces between chords. The more loping the groove, the greater the relish Petty takes in the sound of his voice - a fine, Dylan-ish whine on the title song, a sly purr on "Rhino Skin", a gunslinger's cocky kiss-off on "Billy The Kid".

This is Petty and the Heart-breakers standing their ground with wise-ass grins and loud guitars, past the point of caring about what anyone else thinks. This is a band smart enough to know what else is out there and sure enough of itself not to be particularly concerned or threatened by any of it.

Check out the tracks: “Free Girl Now”; “Room At The Top” and “Swingin’”.

This double LP housed in a gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves and etched Side D, is pressed in the USA on black vinyl.