Tom Petty - LET ME UP (I'VE...) Vinyl

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty (vocals, guitar); Mike Campbell (guitar); Benmont Tench (keyboards); Howie Epstein (bass); Stan Lynch (drums).
Recorded at Sound City & M.C Studios, Los Angeles, California.
LET ME UP was seen as Petty's attempt to step away from the elaborate neo-psychedelic artifice of the ambitious SOUTHERN ACCENTS and get to back to straight-ahead rock & roll, but in fact, it's probably just the record he happened to feel like making at the time. That said, rock & roll doesn't get more straight-ahead than the power-riffing non sequitirs of the visceral "Jammin' Me," co-written with Petty's fellow Wilbury Bob Dylan. There's a distinct folk-rock flavor to the ballad "It'll All Work Out," a mandolin-laced ode to a typical Petty girl (faded jeans, leather jacket, etc.) On "Runaway Trains" and "My Life/Your World" things take a decidedly '80s-sounding turn. Mike Campbell's guitar on the former is redolent of his "Boys of Summer" collaboration with Don Henley, and the latter is powered by percolating synths.

• Genre: Rock
• Format: Vinyl