Four
words guaranteed to bring joy to this reviewer’s heart “New Robin Trower album”.
And having it in your hands and then filling your head is no bad thing either.Trower’s last album Something’s About To Change was magnificent – a total return to form and one of the highlights of 2015 – this is better.
He has never been a panderer to the ‘in’ sounds, even in his early days with the Paramounts he was innovative but he has refined his sound over the years and you now get a darkly Bluesy sound with a terrific melodic sense. He has played with psychedelia for years – since Bridge Of Sighs if not before – and there is a touch of the spaced experimentation there still but his playing is much more focussed today and his playing is sublime, relying less on effects and purely about his skill.
It is trite to suggest that there isn’t a weak moment on the album but after playing it through a number of times I have not found one yet.
From the opening When Will The Next Blow Fall where his bass playing is massive and heavy but counterbalanced by light guitar and his vocals just laid back enough to put over heavy subjects without a sense of terror it just works.
His decision to start playing bass has definitely added to the rhythmic sense of the music and allowed him to round out his songs in a way that having someone else in the deep spot will not.
According to Robin, “This is a continuation from my last album Something’s About To Change – in fact I’ve only stopped recording songs to go on tour. I like to play the guitar for two or three hours a day, and that invariably leads to a new song idea every few days.”