| · Ninth album from the poetic punk priestess of the ’70s is her first for Sony. Daughter Jesse plays piano on one track.
Patti Smith became a legend with a mere four brilliant, albeit flawed, albums in the 1970s before vanishing into motherhood and domestic bliss. When she resurfaced in 1988 with Wave, it was as if her inner shaman had been turned inside-out and run through the dryer with a pretty smelling anti-static sheet. Three other insipid albums followed, until she had a collection of the four ’70s masterpieces and four really bland paperweights. And while 100 poor albums could never drink dry the fountain of her legend, she was getting damned annoying.
Trampin’ tips the scales back towards her wild winning side. The singer drifts ghost-like through the 11 songs, visiting inspirations such as Ghandi, Martin Luther King and poet William Blake. While she remains every inch a poet, her lyrics are hurled against realities, such as the shame of the U.S. military presence in Iraq or the year her husband Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5 died. The result is a seesaw of ugliness and bliss over which Smith pours the gasoline of her voice, then uses the music to strike a match.
The result is still as uneven as her early work, but a song like "Trespasses" is so beautiful you’d swear you heard it in a dream, while "My Blakean Year" is so dark it’s a remnant of a nightmare.
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