It gets rather difficult, in the contemporary music scene, to find an artist with a career span of 50-plus years and 30 albums recorded as a solo artist, still willing to work as hard as the legendary Blues/Rock guitarist and singer/songwriter Walter Trout does on each and every record.
Unanimously considered by the music press and Trout's fellow colleague artists as one of the most gifted and talented torchbearers of Blues/Rock of this generation, there is quite nobody like the American artist, in this genre, able to deliver bodies of work of such imperious emotional intensity and enormous creative form, just as Trout has done again on his brand new album, called Broken.
Although described by the Artist Himself not a record that relies on positive vibes, from a songwriting perspective, it is equally true that Broken is an album that epitomizes perfectly Walter Trout's outstanding musicianship at 360 degrees, through the 12 incendiary tracks included into the guitarist's new album.
The genesis of Broken, from a lyrical context, comes from a deeply personal and heartwarmingly open analysis of the emotional rollercoaster that Trout has been able to live through in the last 5 decades of his remarkable music career, together with Trout's usually lucid and uncompromising honest views on the current state of the world, intended not only as the one surrounding him, but also on a much more worldwide scale.
From a more sonic angle, Broken displays Trout as explosive as you ever heard him before. At the very respectable age of 73, Walter Trout plays guitar with remarkable dynamism and equal ferocity and passion, distilling in all of Broken's songs different sides of his undisputed brilliancy as a guitarist.
In our view, another winning aspect of this modern Blues/Rock masterpiece comes also from the alchemy and trust that Walter Trout and his trusted producer Eric Corne have built together in the last two decades. Being Broken the 15th consecutive album on which Trout has requested the expert hands of Corne in the producing seat, it's no wonder how Corne has managed so well to maximize at their highest each of the multiple skills of an artist like Trout, as a Guitar Maestro, together as a singer and as a songwriter.
Each of the 12 songs part of Broken are a profound journey in the soul of a gifted musician that is never afraid to show his vulnerability, to talk openly about his often tumultuous past and the dark that he carried within and the love for his wife that literally transformed his life.
Whilst the American singer/songwriter delves intensely, as a songwriter, on themes related to fractured relationships (Turn And Walk Away), isolation (No Magic (In The Street)), fragility (Broken (an emotionally drenched tune sang in duet with Blues/Rock Powerhouse Beth Hart), Breathe, Talkin' To Myself), love (I Wanna Stay and the latin-esque sounding instrumental Love Of My Life) and frustration against politics and power (I've Had Enough, featuring also Twisted Sisters' Dee Snider dueting on vocals and guitar with Trout), Walter Trout sounds like he is also having a real ball as a musician, on Broken, taking occasionally his music into genres very close to his heart and his artistic growth, such as Southern-Rock and 70's Progressive, both beautifully illustrated on songs like Breathe and the closing track called Falls Apart.
Through Broken, Walter Trout has once again reaffirmed his role as one of the greatest Blues/Rock artist of this generation. As it ever this was in doubt...
Broken is out now and it is available to be purchased via Mascot Label Group / Provogue
