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When the going gets tough, the tough keep playing, in the case of this London guitarist, they keep playing (after all, the same verb is used in English...), moving straight ahead, oblivious to the fact they have become an object of the closest cult, with the brief period of widespread success far in the past (1973-76). He continues undeterred to perform concerts, release albums and appropriately title them ("I Go My Own Way"... in this case), playing like a god and bringing joy to all those who have the rare, chronic illness of admiring and following him now and forever.
This is an excellent album... pure and inspired British rock blues tainted by the usual ghost of Jimi Hendrix, the man who opened the ears and mind of a young Trower while he was still wasting time as a sidekick pianist and organist in Procol Harum. Robin is one of those artists with the ability to "enter" inside the six strings of his instrument, capturing every single note with all possible attention and love, working on it with care and continuing to move within it until the last, until it's time to devote to the next one, starting over with the same passionate ceremony. He belongs, in short, to that group of soloists with a rich, expressive, and surprising touch... the breed of Beck, Gilmour, Belew, the late Kossoff, Knopfler, Ian Crichton, Gibbons, even Page; all people who, when starting a solo, invariably manage to let their heart flow down to their fingertips, to model attack, sound, intonation, and timing to the exact mood of the moment, to deliver deep sensations for those who, among rock enthusiasts, have a good ear and the right discernment between what is authentic or not in music.
Trower, like everyone, was a bit lost in the eighties, chasing or rather enduring the kind of sounds and production of the time, so vacuous and shapeless. But this album is from the end of the millennium, and the remnants of that career phase are entirely removed; the master here is intense and fiery, his Hendrixian style relies on tons of wah-wah pedal, skilful echoed reverbs, subtle tremolos to give infinite depth and filamentous tails to notes made so musical and meaningful by the sublime vibrato, the dynamic strumming, the insane passion that pervades his calling to music and instantly radiates to those who listen with appropriate attention and passion.
The most remarkable episodes of the album are first of all the eponymous opening, a psychedelic blues that is stretched to over nine minutes with an enormous guitar improvisation that is truly stunning, then the inspired Hendrixian ballad "Into Dust," the rarefied and rolling "Blue Soul," the velvety and intimate "On Your Own," the psychotic "Take This River," and finally "Breathless," a hypnotic song with a slightly grunge style (the drum groove, the brutally harsh riff) placed as track number two to try to broaden listening horizons.
Trower often and willingly also ventures into vocals here, not as talented as the rest of his musician's arsenal... he comes out with a tone somewhat like Tom Petty, but nonetheless it's such sincerity, such a centered approach to what he does, the meticulous attention to the nuances and possibilities of the blues that it fits, it really fits, that he plays and sings it himself.
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