Echo

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.com
Just a few bars into song 1, "Room at the Top," and you know you're in the capable hands of a master songwriter. A mellow chorus wafts by, whispered in Petty's patented Byrdsian drawl, and the song seems to tick-tock to a stop. But storming over the top is a riff from guitarist Mike Campbell. Another chorus and you know there's a bridge creeping up. Petty, in a gesture that's both droll and dynamic, mutters "Hit it" to announce it. The proceedings slow again, then Campbell's gears start grinding again, and there's a grand crescendo that is, if you'll pardon the pun, heartbreakingly wicked. Then Petty murmurs a deep, resonate "No-oh" in a broken, brilliantly understated way that's rock & roll perfect! If you understand the alchemist genius that transmutes such humble metal into gold, you're ready to curl up with 14 songs of near-similar standing. Petty and the Heartbreakers have succeeded in making an album that's stunning in its simplicity yet as carefully ornate and wondrous as a stained-glass window. Indeed, renaissance might be an appropriate tag for the reborn Petty, except that he's never really gone away. Like that "Room at the Top" bridge, he's always been lurking around the corner, waiting to surprise you when the time is right. --Tom Lanham

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-10-06 rating:
This album is superb!
When I first heard a few cuts from this album I know I had to have it, and I was not disappointed! I have listened to it again and again. The songs "Echo", "Room at the Top" and "Swingin" I have actually listened to all day. I am a relative "newcomer" to the Tom Petty bandwagon and I have found his music to be absolutely incredible.

Thank you Amazon for sending it to me so promptly. You sure beat out the record stores!

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review by: date: 2008-08-04 rating:
ECHO, and NO MORE--------" A little strange "
I like that this album has great length ( good number of tracks ), BUT..... the song's "ECHO and NO MORE" are really STRANGE songs. I just don't get them. Since no lyrics where added (A MAJOR MISTAKE ), I have know way of knowing what, tom petty is trying to say in these two songs. As with all of tom's music, the music is good but sometimes the subject or words are really a tough one to see what he's singing about. This only happens once in a while ( don't get me wrong ), But it happened twice on CD. At least he didn't rip everybody off with NOT ENOUGH SONGS on the album. But in this case, 2 song's less is a BETTER ALBUM. STRANGE that the STRANGE song " EHCO"...........is the title of the album.

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review by: author and music buff date: 2008-07-23 rating:
A sad, surly echo
Tom Petty took a long time between his 90's albums. Wildflowers was in 1994, Into the Great Wide Open, the last album with The Heartbreakers came out in 1991. For only the third time in the decade, Petty mustered up an album of new material and headed back to the studio, again (as on "Wildflowers") with producer Rick Rubin. Once more. Rubin guided Petty through music that appears natural, unforced and from the heart.

The twist was that Petty was coming of a divorce with his wife of 20 years, and these songs reflect the turmoil in his life from the time. He has even gone as far as to say that he won't perform many of these songs again, as they're too painful for him to revisit. "Room At The Top" builds slowly, then cascades into a great Mike Campbell solo and Petty's dry vocal hits a boiling point. It's classic Petty and one of the best songs on this, maybe Petty's most under-rated album next to Long After Dark.

It is also, clearly, his most personal. "Wildflowers" often felt like Petty was delving into his personal thoughts, but songs like "One More Night One More Day" drip with sadness and pain. This is a diary of a life coming undone, in the way Phil Collins' Face Value or Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights made brilliant cathartic art from relationship pain. There is hurt (the title song, "Rhino Skin"), anger ("Go Down Swinging," "Free Girl Now") and a nostalgic wish for better memories ("Accused Of Love"). The songs on "Echo" are easily the most consistent since Full Moon Fever, with the production striking a balance somewhere between Jeff Lynne's and the oft-times too laid back pace of "Wildflowers."

"Echo" is an album of heavy substance. There are moments of brief humor ("Swinging") but just as often, a certain surliness underneath the rockers - "I Don't Wanna Fight" could easily be his best kiss-off aside from Damn the Torpedoes' "Don't Do Me Like That" - belying the Heartbreakers' usual tight and muscular playing. Had this been earlier in his career, my general thinking is that this would have been maybe two songs shorter and heralded as a masterpiece. Regardless, "Echo" is an album of such complexity and emotion, that it stands head to head with Petty and The heartbreakers' best.

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review by: assistant principal date: 2007-10-17 rating:
Fabulous
I won't repeat any of the great reviews already given ("echo" them...?), but if you are still in doubt, just listen to the title track, and you ought to be sold. It is one of the most sadly beautiful songs I have ever heard and is worth the price of the Cd itself.


review by: date: 2007-08-09 rating:
An underrated work
The more I listen to this underrated gem, the more I appreciate it. Some Tom Petty albums just get better with age.

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