Search - Patti Smith :: Trampin

Poet. Punk. Priestess. Patti Smith is still all these, yet much more on Trampin', which ranges from protest songs to hopeful hymns. Though the disc opens with an exuberant exhortation to "discard your Sunday shoes" ("Jubilee") and concludes with a quiet gospel standard, in between Smith's journey to find heaven on Earth is rocky. She calls on Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the poet William Blake for aid. She chants to rebuild a "Peaceable Kingdom," then whips around and unleashes the furious twelve-minute fireball of "Radio Baghdad," a jagged, Zeppelin-esque epic that recalls her 1975 debut, Horses. Her band, featuring longtime guitarist Lenny Kaye, are in superlative form: intertwining hypnotic leads on "Cartwheels;" dropping a mournful surf-tinged solo into "Mother Rose." Marked by both its simplicity and ambition, Trampin' reiterates that Smith remains a quintessential American artist, every inch the equal of Springsteen, Dylan, or Lou Reed. --Kurt B. Reighley