American rock-and-roll zeitgeist, Tom Petty has acquired a worn belt full of silver bullets over the past 30 years. With a trusty group of cohorts, Petty has shot up the billboards with a slew of hit singles and over 60 million albums sold. His Cowboy-meets-Crooner charisma has won the hearts of a massive American fan base that has remained loyal, allowing him to continue touring and releasing albums consistently since his debut album, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Petty’s 12th and most recent release, Mojo, dropped June 15, a date rescheduled to coincide with the Heartbreakers’ extensive North American tour genesis.

The album is self admittedly about, “pleasing ourselves.” Petty said in Rolling Stone, “we didn’t worry about whether someone else would like it.” This sentiment definitely shows in Petty’s first reunion with his trusty backup talent, the Heartbreakers, in eight years. 'Mojo'' feels like a jam session with a group of very talented and obviously close musicians.

“U.S. 41” tumbles forward as one of the album’s most natural feeling tracks. In true Dylan fashion, Petty’s voice transforms into a dispenser for a gritty blues song that narrates a classic tale of crime and punishment, love and loss. All the while the slide guitar slips and quivers into call and return relationship that serves as Petty’s foil throughout the album.

In “The Trip to Blind Man’s Cove,” Petty’s voice, wet with reverb, washes over the track like an incoming tide. The laid back, beachy vibe might even entice younger listeners who go in for bands like Beach House or Portugal the Man?. Lyrically, however, Petty shows his age with lines like, “she was a part of my heart now she’s just a line on my face.” These spare moments of confession serve as Mojo’s most memorable.

Other standout tracks, “Good Enough”, a Beatlesque blues ballad, and “First Flash of Freedom”, a Juggernaut of a jam, finds Petty leading the Heartbreakers through mile after mile of steel bending blues lead and crunchy drum fills. Sometimes it feels like captain and crew are so unconcernedly lost in the journey of the jam that forget they are pursued by a hopeful audience of listeners just hoping for one more “Free Falling” or “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”. There is no such pop-nugget on this album. And a beloved Petty trots a precarious line between laidback and lazy.