Jenny Lewis and Tom Petty, both fixtures of the super-hyphenated alt-country, alt-rock, country-rock scene that constitutes contemporary Americana, both release new albums today and both sets of new music are worth checking out.
Jenny Lewis – “The Voyager”
“No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys / there’s a little something inside that won’t let me,” Jenny Lewis sings on “Just One of the Guys.” That something is pure songwriting talent – both as a solo artist and as lead singer of indie heroes Rilo Kiley, Lewis has consistently separated herself from the herd with an innate knack for catchy melodies and eclectic instrumentation.
“The Voyager” proves no exception. “She’s Not Me,” with it’s spunky snare snaps and warm synth washes, evokes disco-era ABBA slowed down to a gentle mid-tempo clip.
The title track’s spaced-out lyrics are met light year for light year by its lush string crescendos and shimmery arpeggios of robotic beep-beep-boops, but a gentle, repetitive acoustic strum keeps the craft’s rudder centered.
Album highlight “You Can’t Outrun ‘Em” chugs along like Stevie Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac, samba-tinged drums and burbling bass dancing along underneath punchy acoustic guitar plucks as Lewis passes down the chorus’s titular world-weary advice with vim and vinegar.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – “Hypnotic Eye”
It’s getting really easy to take Tom Petty for granted – the dude’s been at it now for more than 30 years, releasing 15 studio albums at a steady clip since his self-titled debut with the Heartbreakers in 1976 – but his latest, “Hypnotic Eye,” makes 16 reasons now why you shouldn’t.
Nor should you call this 63-year-old past his prime. On “U Get Me High,” from the new album, he delivers a batch of lovey-dovey platitudes similar to those on “Here Comes My Girl,” from 1979’s “Damn the Torpedoes,” in a near-perfect replica of the warbling, nasally talk-sing he could deploy back then. On “Forgotten Man,” Petty yanks along and draws out every syllable, his vintage “Refugee,” also from 1979’s “Torpedoes,” in perfectly pissed-off form: “I fEEyul like a fOOOrgotten mayin.”
The Heartbreakers’ rollicking instrumentation sounds every bit as vivacious and rebellious here, too. On “Forgotten Man,” guitarist Mike Campbell launches into a frenetic rockabilly solo over Steve Ferrone’s big, loud, George-of-the-Jungle drum fills, and “Fault Lines” features a staccato spray of psychedelic electric guitar.
If you don’t listen to any of the other songs, at least check out lead single and opening track “American Dream Plan B,” in which Petty’s reverb- and distortion-cloaked voice sounds like it’s clawing its way through seven dense inches of wet spider web, and Campbell’s unhinged, Kinks-esque guitar break jumps over dub-y pillars of fuzz-bass thrust.
