Blues-rock icon Walter Trout is riding a creatively formidable wave and heading into 2024 with an album raucous, wild and poignant in Broken. The album features guest appearances from powerhouse singer Beth Hart, Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider and Harmonica virtuoso Will Wilde.

All of us are broken. But no one is beyond repair. It’s a philosophy that Walter Trout has lived by during seven volatile decades at the heart of America’s society and blues-rock scene. Even now, with the world more fractured than ever – by politics, economics, social media and culture wars – the fabled US bluesman’s latest album, Broken, chronicles the bitter schisms of modern life but refuses to succumb to them.

I’ve always tried to write positive songs, and this album is not quite that, considers the 72-year-old of an all-original tracklisting that rages and soothes. But I always hold on to hope. I think that’s why I wrote this album.

1. Broken (feat. Beth Hart)
2. Turn And Walk Away
3. Courage In The Dark
4. Bleed (feat. Will Wilde)
5. Talkin’ To Myself
6. No Magic (in the street)
7. I’ve Had Enough (feat. Dee Snider)
8. Love Of My Life
9. Breathe
10. Heaven Or Hell
11. I Wanna Stay
12. Falls Apart

On this amazingly vibrant new blues-rock recording, Trout opens on the languishing yearn that drives the titular Broken (featuring Beth Hart) and the country porch imbibed, harmonica-hued Turn And Walk Away, and they are followed by the low slung Courage In The Dark, the fiery rocker Bleed (featuring Will Wilde), and then comes the mid-tempo blues-country-rock of Talkin’ To Myself and the harmonica-driven beauty No Magic (in the street).

Along next is the frenetic guitar rocker I’ve Had Enough (featuring Dee Snider) and then, out of the blue, we get a beautiful yearn within the languishing ballad Love Of My Life and they are in turn backed by the rhythmic Breathe, the storytelling within Heaven Or Hell, the album rounding out on a dutiful low key hipsway found within the ballad I Wanna Stay, closing on some pleasing guitar work found on Falls Apart.

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