Sighs Matters

‘Coming closer to the day/Move on up through the gears or turn away…’ (Coming Closer To The Day, by Robin Trower). It is a sombre fact that, with every passing month, the heroes of the classic rock era are being steadily gathered in. Robin Trower, still on the road and in rude health at the age of 74, regards old age and the looming final curtain as a frontier to be navigated with increasing determination. “My feeling is that as you’re going towards the end of life, if I want to get to where I’m going, particularly in music, I’ve got to work harder,” Trower says. “You have to start revving up.”

His new album, the ominously titled , certainly finds Trower firing on all cylinders. His twenty-third studio album as a solo act, it is another showcase for his skills as one of the supreme electric guitarists of his, or indeed any, generation. A master of technique, tone and texture, Trower developed an early infatuation with Jimi Hendrix into a transcendent blues-rock style that is entirely his own. He continues to sculpt rugged riffs