There are guitar players, and then there’s Robin Trower. After the better part of six decades, the South London bluesman still stands in a category almost entirely of his own making. His new live record, “One Moment In Time: Live In The USA”, captures him doing what he’s always done best: letting the guitar speak.
Recorded across two nights on his 2025 US tour, the 14-song set is a whistle-stop through a catalogue that has shaped blues rock since the mid-70s. Classics sit comfortably alongside newer material, but what really matters here is the feel. For Trower, songs are living things. They go where they want.
No one quite plays the guitar like him. Take “Too Rolling Stoned”. The funk groove seems almost effortless before it quietly slips into a jam without blinking an eye. That’s the magic of Trower’s music — structure is there, but it never feels rigid.
One of the most expressive players around, the sadness in his playing is palpable. There’s always been a touch of Hendrix in the phrasing, but it’s long since been absorbed into something unmistakably his own.
The centrepiece, inevitably, is “Bridge Of Sighs”. It stretches out into the longest and most involved performance here, a slow-burning blues meditation where Trower is clearly enjoying the freedom of the moment. “He did not feel the emptiness in his heart,” goes the lyric — and it’s tempting to suggest that if there was ever a void, Trower has spent a lifetime filling it with the blues. The performance is undisputably gorgeous.
And that raises the obvious question: does anyone actually do slow blues better? Given how effortlessly the set shifts gears, the bigger question might be whether anyone does blues better at all.
A lot of this will depend on how much you enjoy extended jams. Trower has never been afraid to let a song breathe, and this record captures that instinct beautifully. Nothing feels rushed.
By the time the encore arrives things get a little more raucous before “Birdsong” settles into a groove that once again lets you marvel at the playing. Because ultimately, that’s what this is about. Tone, feel, expression — the sort of guitar playing that reminds you why the instrument mattered in the first place.
After all these years, Robin Trower is still saying plenty with six strings.
RATING: 8/10
