Review: 'Ordinary Madness' Walter Trout

Walter Trout

By Mike O’Cull

Blues/rock guitar shaman, singer-songwriter, and street survivor Walter Trout delivers another batch of his heartfelt six-string excursions on his new record Ordinary Madness. The record comes out August 28th, 2020 thanks to Provogue Records/Mascot Label Group and reveals Trout in top form both musically and lyrically. Produced by Eric Corne, Ordinary Madness was tracked at a private studio owned by legendary Doors guitarist Robby Krieger. The room is a California musical paradise, full of vintage gear and the infinite vibes of a rock and roll immortal. Trout, Corne, and Trout’s band members Michael Leasure (drums), Johnny Griparic (bass) and Teddy ‘Zig Zag’ Andreadis (keys) conspired to create a career-best record in Krieger’s digs and got it done just prior to the COVID-19 lockdown.

Walter Trout is a musician’s musician who has played with the likes of Jesse Ed Davis, Big Mama Thornton, Lowell Fulson, Joe Tex, Canned Heat, and John Mayall and also released 27 solo albums. His five-decade career includes periods of triumph, tragedy, and narcotic oblivion as well as recovery from a nearly-fatal organ transplant. Now approaching his 70th birthday, Trout refuses to run on autopilot and continues to dig deeply into himself to create inspiring music and turn in performances that hypnotize and thrill. His guitar work has never been better and his songwriting is perfectly tuned-in to the Zeitgeist of life in 2020. Trout still has his head very much in the game and pushes himself like a younger artist who still has everything to prove.

Trout starts the album with his title cut “Ordinary Madness.” It’s an absolutely simmering, frightening slow blues, voiced by someone staring into their own abyss. Trout’s vocals convey the despair of one whose mind has turned into “a stalker…an interior talker” and who can’t prevent the damage it’s doing. His guitar solo takes the tension level up a notch, as he displays one of the most unique guitar styles you’ll ever hear. Trout has a way of working his string bends that creates a floating, almost theremin-like sound that he shifts in and out of to great effect and makes him sound like nobody else in this world.

“Wanna Dance” is a heavy classic rock song that blends Trout’s angst and blues with a bit of a Deep Purple vibe. He sings and plays like a man who has seen the edge but managed somehow not to fall, which makes Trout’s emotional authority beyond reproach. You never get the sense that he’s play-acting to curry favor with his fans and it’s beyond refreshing. “My Foolish Pride” is a delicate ballad that shows us Trout can whisper as well as he can scream. His low-key vocals make this one fly high and are punctuated by a short, soaring guitar break. Most guitar stars drop the ball on this kind of vocal-oriented material but Trout simply shifts gears and shines.

One of the best tracks on Ordinary Madness is the psychedelic slow blues/rock cut “The Sun Is Going Down.” The song is a public meditation on aging and running out of time. Trout’s guitar wails in anguish before kicking the band into gear and launching into a life-affirming jam. It lives, breathes, stretches, grows, and ends without resolution, which makes a perfect non-verbal connection with the song’s topic. Every song on the record has the power to knock you over but be sure to dig great Side Two selections including “Up Above My Sky” and the hard-rocking blues “OK Boomer.” Walter Trout may well have made the finest album of his career with Ordinary Madness, one that strives to communicate his personal truths while still being a compelling listen for guitar fans. Put it on “repeat” and let it reveal itself to you.