Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 Reviewer: Trent Depue |
Mudcrutch is, if nothing else long overdue, being that it’s the debut record from a band that was formed damn near forty years ago. Coming together six years before the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty’s Mudcrutch served as the house band in their hometown in Florida before getting signed, releasing one single and subsequently breaking up. Now over thirty years later the original band, in its entirety, has reformed to release this piece of country rock nostalgia.
From the opening notes of ‘Shady Grove’ it becomes immediately obvious that this record will be a complete throwback to the time the band was formed, and with Petty returning to his bass playing roots, the theme carries on through the entire album. Combining mostly upbeat rocking numbers like stand out examples ‘Six Days on the Road’ and ‘Lover of the Bayou’ with the odd slower country number, ‘House of Stone’ and even a marathon jam in the ten minute ‘Crystal River,’ Mudcrutch manages to successfully create a balanced album.
And while most of the people in this band have had the benefit of years of practice and world wide success together as The Heartbreakers, Mudcrutch’s self-titled debut seems good enough proof that history could have just as easily have seen their name on concerts bills for decades, rather than Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
