Album: Tom Petty, Mojo (Reprise)

If the feeling after all these years is that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sound like a leather-bound omnibus edition of American rock's best intentions, that doesn't mean they're no good.

Au contraire, they're very good. Petty's writing is no longer animated by the romantic dazzle of his youth but it still has pull: "She was a part of my heart / Now she's just a line in my face." And if the band rocks like a working party of experts, don't let that bring you down. They do it like they mean it.