The title Coming Closer to the Day invites an obvious reading for a musician in his seventies, and Robin Trower does address age and mortality in the songs. What is more striking, however, is how little the music sounds like the work of somebody winding down. This is his seventh studio album in less than a decade, and the quality of that late-career run remains remarkable.
The missing element compared with Trower's classic seventies albums is still Jimmy Dewar. His warm, soulful singing was as important to Bridge of Sighs and For Earth Below as the guitar tone itself, and nobody has fully replaced him. Trower's own voice is more limited, a low conversational growl rather than a great soul instrument, but these later songs increasingly seem written around exactly that limitation.
There is an intimacy in hearing him sing material concerned with time, regret and persistence. He also plays bass throughout, which gives the record an unusually self-contained character. Despite the overdubs, the production by Trower and Sam Winfield remains warm and organic; very little sounds assembled artificially.
The guitar is still the unmistakable center. Trower's debt to Hendrix has been discussed for half a century, but reducing him to that influence ignores the completeness of his vocabulary. Blues phrasing, psychedelic color, deep funk and Curtis Mayfield-style soul all exist inside the same touch. The vibrato alone identifies him within a few notes.
"Truth or Lies" leans into rhythm and blues, while "Little Girl Blue" gives him room for slow, spacious blues phrasing. "The Perfect Wrong" is heavier, with some of the brute force of Cream, and "Don't Ever Change" draws on the delicate soul language Hendrix himself absorbed from Mayfield. The tempos remain largely moderate, but the emotional and harmonic character changes considerably from song to song.
That variety matters because Trower no longer needs speed or instrumental spectacle to make the guitar compelling. A bent note held against the rhythm section can carry more information than a dozen rapid phrases. His playing has become increasingly economical without losing any of its personality.
Coming Closer to the Day is most satisfying because the songs justify the playing around them. Trower's tone and phrasing would make almost anything pleasurable for a few minutes; here they are attached to material strong enough to survive beyond the guitar sound. The lineage still reaches back to Hendrix, blues and psychedelic soul, but after this many decades, the accent belongs entirely to Robin Trower.
GENRE: Rock, Blues Rock, Psychedelic
RELEASE DATE: March 22, 2019
PRODUCED BY: Robin Trower & Sam Winfield
LABEL: Provogue / Mascot Label Group
RATING: 7/10