A triple shot of the Robin Trower Trio

Back when i listened to Bridge of Sighs i mentioned that critics generally loved it, then generally didn't love the next two Robin Trower albums. Let's try to hypothesize why that might be. 

The possibilities are staggering, so we need to condense it down to a few theoretical categories. First, people generally don't like change, so it could be that tonight's albums are radically different from Bridge of Sighs. Second, people generally don't like consistency either, so if it's too much like Bridge of Sighs then they'll say "meh, i'd rather just listen to Bridge of Sighs again." Third, people generally don't form their own opinions or understand their own tastes, so most all of it is a not particularly spicy gumbo of non-gumbo appropriate ingredients. So there you go, it could be too different or too similar, but mostly no one knows what they're talking about. Trashcan that idea, we'll just give 'em all a spin and see what floats up to the surface. 

We now cut to Long Misty Days, already in progress. I've done it a couple times now to verify, and i can confirm it's a cold open every single time. Side I sounds like it's Side II after a full steam ahead cliff hanger. No context, just right to the middle of the movie wondering why Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are yelling at each other about not being able to slow the bus down. I know we're out of order, but i like to bookend the idea, see the beginning and end then fill in the middle. 

On that score, this is all still Robin experimentally Blues-doodling, and James Clayton-Thomas, sorry Dewar, Otis Redding-ing up the place. It's lovely. Long Misty Days is a random crap concept, and more of a mood than any kind of teleological sequence, so that's fine. Maybe it's a little too funky? It's totally appropriately funky, but maybe that's the reason critics didn't like it. And just like we started out of nowhere, i guess the album's over now that it stopped playing. I've listened to a lot of albums, and i can safely say that this is the only one i've ever heard that had neither a beginning nor and end. Maybe that's subconsciously agitating for a lot of people? It's certainly remarkable, seeing as how i just remarked upon it. 

Well, that got us nowhere. Maybe For Earth Below will give us something more substantial. K, it's not as blatant as Long Misty Days, but yeah it kinda feels like we walked into the bar mid set and we haven't even had a chance to order drinks before It's Only Money goes 3 sheets to the wind. Freakin' amazing, but i can't get over that feeling like we showed up late to the party and everyone's looking at us like we passed fashionable hours ago. Confessin' Midnight should have been track 2, the flow would feel way better. The rest of the album is great, and the title track for a closer works surprisingly well. 

Okay, so we've observed the phemomena, it's time to properly theorize what's going on here. Amazingly we go all the way back to the Doors. There aren't really any individual Robin Trower albums. I've seen some proper fan reviews that give it proper credit, solo Robin Trower is just a continuous stream of consciousness, artificially broken into LP sized chunks. In the end you either like his playing or you don't. I'm of course massively biased and a huge fan of Trower's playing, but i can absolutely hear more than a couple moments across all 3 albums that could qualify as poorly executed Hendrix impersonations. If that's your basis for comparison then Trower often sounds stiff and awkward, and occasionally like he's totally lost. I don't naturally hear it that way, i'm just pointing out that i can. What you won't find on any of these 3 albums, however, is a single bad song. They fail some of my criteria for "great album," but only because they don't seem to care about being great albums in that respect. Album is merely the format forced upon them, when what they really are is one continuous hallway with all sorts of things happening behind every door. That could be an unpleasant adventure for some, but i can definitely dig side after side after side of this. In fact, i just did. I might even have to find a few more, he's got 26 of 'em. Technically this classic power trio ends with 1983's Back It Up, and sadly James Dewar died in 2002, but now i'm just rambling. Fantastic stuff, i could just let it play for hours.