Tom Petty and the HeartbreakersEcho

Gray, rainy, and bruised, this is the sound of a man coming apart. Petty wrote it in the depression after his 22-year marriage collapsed, and Rubin leaves his nasal drawl exposed over guitars that turn thick and woolly. "Room at the Top" builds slow and weary into hard-won grace; "Swingin'" hides the heartbreak in a jaunty groove and name-drops Sonny Liston. The rockers swagger, but the hurt bleeds through every one. His most quietly devastating record.