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Артист: Robin Trower Альбом: In City Dreams (1977), 1989 Издатель: Chrysalis / F2 21148 DIDX 5079 Жанр: Blues-Hard-Album-....Rock... Формат файла: eac-cue-log-wv-scans-iso Ссылка: CD 125 clicks Нахождение: eDonkey/Torrent Примечание: Repack, CueTools

Tnx to original releaser! Tnx to friends for help

TRACKLIST

1. Somebody Calling 2. Sweet Wine Of Love 3. Bluebird 4. Falling Star 5. Farther Up The Road 6. Smile 7. Little Girl 8. Love's Gonna Bring You Round 9. In City Dreams

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You can read about Robin @ AMG

"сборник" ссылок - Topic Link: Robin Trower - 9CDs

Review: Starling.rinet.ru
1977 was the year of revolution and change in the air, but Mr Trower with his limited, yet devoted gang of followers, could really care less about punk and stuff - definitely not a single trace of outside influence can be found on this record. Anyway, punk might have blown apart the fortunes of progressive heroes who'd lost the last traces of their former critical reputation by then, but it certainly couldn't touch Trower who never was a great critics-acclaimed hero to begin with. And yet, according to fans and Trowerophiles, it "officially" starts what is usually called the "experimental" period for Trower. To tell you the truth, it took me a long time to figure out the vast stylistic difference between this stuff and the earlier albums - until I finally realized that "experimentation" is a very relative notion and in Trower's case, it means nothing more but a 'slight deviation from the usual formula'. Indeed, where the previous four albums were all carbon copies of each other except that some had more and some less hooks, In City Dreams is slightly different: it emphasizes primarily the 'softer' side of Robin, with far more ballads than usual and some different guitar tones on occasion. On a few tracks he does deliver the usual goods, but overall it's obvious that In City Dreams presents us Trower the dreamer: he's become far mellower and lighter, yet managed to effectuate the transgression without slipping into 'soft rock irrelevancy' (a cliche which I picked somewhere - I honestly don't remember the source). Meanwhile, Dewar prefers to concentrate entirely on the singing, as all these ballads require far more precision and subtle delicacy from the vocalist, so the bass duties are passed over to Rustee Allen.
And the result? Not exactly weak, but somewhat disappointing. As usual, I dig the sound in general. It was pretty hard to mellow out in the Seventies and not sound like the Eagles (or the Carpenters! although that danger never really threatened Robin); but Trower compensates everything with his unique picking style and echoey, moody arrangements, not to mention the endless phasing and other fuzzy tricks that he hasn't abandoned in the least. Thus, even 'Smile', the bounciest, poppiest track on here, sounds excellent - commercial and at the same time artistically successful. It sometimes happens that so-called "rock performers", when they churn out the usual soft-rock radio sludge, dilute it with a few badly placed pseudo-metallic guitar lines so as to seem "cool" and avoid direct accusations of sissiness - I hate when that happens; if you're doing "soft rock", then let it be soft. If the melody is pretty, there's no need to make it more 'generic'; and if the melody is fluffy, well, no leaden guitar passages will save an atrocious song from being atrocious in the first place. But it's a different thing with Trower - while I could never call the melody of 'Smile' particularly good, no matter what Robin does with his guitar, it all works out fine in the sound department. He cranks out some wah-wah notes, and they sound convenient; he adds an overload of phasing, and it seems completely natural; then he switches on to the usual 'soft' pattern, and I say, hey, it's cool, here's some nice instrumentation for you.
Yet melody-wise, this is still a letdown when compared to the previous album. Almost as if to remind the public that he is a gritty blues guitarist after all (as if we hadn't heard all those earlier records), Trower throws in an expendable live version of 'Further On Up The Road', short, unimaginative and pointless - in comparison, Mr Clapton drove his point into the ground far more successfully on contemporary live performances of the same number. Some of Robin's ballads show him running out of ideas once again: 'Little Girl' AGAIN recycles the mood/melody of 'I Can't Wait Much Longer'/'Bridge Of Sighs', etc., etc., while the 'sweeter' part of 'Love's Gonna Bring You Round' is way too commercial for these ears of mine (the 'harder' part is excellent, though). And is it just me again, or does 'Falling Star' indeed have no hooks? Or does it? Can that frantic cry of 'don't fall on me' count as a hook? I'm still trying to decide...
Anyway, basically these are just minor complaints - but when you're dealing with an artist as tremendously consistent as Trower, you can't help but start nitpicking after a while. Never mind; I'll just stop nitpicking now and move on to the good news. The best news is the title track - Robin's most experimental piece on the album indeed, something of a weird hybrid between a soul number and a bolero; if I'm not mistaken, you can take it either way, because there's one guitar part going on that's quite conventional and another going on in between that seems to go 'ta-ta-ta-ta' as in prime Ravel, and the drums follow both patterns as well. Weird and funny, and definitely interesting no matter what else you might feel about the number.
Elsewhere, there are cute little ballads like 'Bluebird' (not the McCartney song, although the mood is similar), and 'Sweet Wine Of Love', and strange little bouncy rockers like 'Somebody Calling' - with its boppy rhythm it kinda presages early Dire Straits, which is a good thing. And hey, whatever. Did I say something bad about those other tracks above? Make sure it only relates to melody, not the actual playing. Trower's da man. Remember how he used to rip himself off on every solo? Those days are gone, he'd developed enough tricks to keep the listener interested throughout. Throughout.