It’s Monday afternoon, and I’m feeling every bit of it. After a full weekend at the third edition of the Jamey Jasta-ran Milwaukee Metal Fest (full review, pics, and a surprise interview dropping later this week), I’m utterly exhausted and hurting in places I didn’t even know it was possible to feel pain in. Perhaps it’s why on a day like this, I’m more appreciative than ever for a new Robin Trower album. Longtime readers of this here webzine are well aware of my Trower fandom. Matter of fact, he’s my second favorite guitarist of all time, topped only by Uli Jon Roth. And after four days of blast beats, growled vocals, machine gun riffs, and mosh pits, a little bit of acid-soaked blues rock is just what I need to decompress.
On his latest studio effort, Come and Find Me, the now 80 year old Trower continues to craft tasty jams and memorable solos with his trusty Strat in tow. Much like the last Trower effort we reviewed, 2022’s No More Worlds to Conquer, and his entire output of this century for that matter, the hard rock bite of his ’70s heyday is all but gone. That said, the hard and heavy aspects of Trower’s sound were always part of a larger musical brew, one that concocted blues, psychedelia, funk, jazz, and prog into a high voltage blast of sound that could only be described as strange and beautiful. And all of those elements are on full display here.
Frontman Richard Watts is back in the fold for this one, his soulful James Dewar-esque vocals brilliantly accompanying Trower’s signature guitar stylings, elevating cuts like the atmospheric “Take This Hurt Away” and funk-tastic “One Go Round” to ’70s caliber brilliance. As for the rest of the personnel, drummer Chris Taggart, bassist Glenn Letsch (on “Tangled Love” and “I Fly Straight to You”; Trower handles the low end on the remainder of the album), and guest singer Jess Hayes, they each do an exemplary job in their respective roles. However, at the end of the day, like every Trower album before it, Come and Find Me is all about the man of the hour himself.
On this latest affair, Trower seems to go a bit wilder than on other recent releases, never formulating a pure hard rock riff, but definitely letting loose on the wah-wah pedal and fuzz, especially on the title track (an excellent show of light and darkness) and “Without a Trace”, the latter a relentless groover. Whether its an old school blues rocker (“A Little Bit of Freedom”), dreamy ethereal ballad (“Capture the Life Begun”), or anything else in between, you can always rely on Trower to take even the most rudimentary of compositions to a new level of excellence. His phrasing impeccable, the melodies scorch your soul, and his tone remains the stuff of legend more than half a century later.
I’m not sure if it’s because I needed an album to soothe the frenzied state of mind I’m currently in, or the album as a whole really is this solid, but Come and Find Me is the most powerful Trower album I’ve heard in quite some time, and certainly the most compelling of his ’20s output thus far (four albums and counting). So long as he shows no signs of reverting to his bluesy hard rock roots, I’m more than fine with an album like this, which highlights the best of everything else Trower is capable of, and that’s quite a lot. Dynamism like this can only be cultivated by years of experience, and that he is.
7 out of 10
Label: Provogue
Genre: Blues Rock
For fans of: Mahogany Rush, Gary Moore, Jimi Hendrix