wordplay by Brain Kenney

"Every porch light has your name…." Petty in Flirting with Time

While Tom Petty has always exhibited a sense of desperation and depression in his songwriting, fans expecting an encore of "Last Dance with Mary Jane" may raise an eyebrow with Highway Companion, his most recent offering sans Heartbreakers. Gone is the youthful optimism of "Running Down a Dream," and in its place is a more mortal and moral (at times even morbid) circulation of themes that Petty etched into the landscape with "Free Falling."

Lead track and debut single "Saving Grace" recalls a Texas beat box rollick of rockabilly in the Southern Baptist belt, the disc edges into the musical noir; from the empty soldier of marriage in "Down South," to the emotional but self-conscious voids of "Damaged by Love." We look for light passages and get them. Optimism winks its eyes in the playful "Jack" and the equally playful but more melodious "Big Weekend" both bearing the simplicity of Petty's "Apartment Song" off of Full Moon Fever.

Companion is a moody inquiry into the mind of Petty, who during the four year conception of his first solo record in 12 years, went through a divorce, learned of [Heartbreaker's bassist] Howie Epstein's death and went the JD Salinger route, secluding himself away from friends in a one room shack in Northern California before remarrying.

Taut with lyrical American realism, such as that which garnered him early success with "American Girl" and recent ventures "Into the Great Wide Open" (a song which Highway Companion self plagiarizes with "Turn this Car Around") the disc is fresh and radio-friendly with simple snippets of Americana, albeit an American life that might be an accomplished soundtrack to The Grapes of Wrath.

TomPetty.com