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Not surprisingly, Trampin' is a largely political album, but it is far from a didactic one.
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Trampin' is Smith at her most deferential: She looks to figures like Gandhi, King, Anderson, and even Bob Dylan on "Stride of the Mind" for spiritual guidance. While this approach may be valid and even occasionally compelling, for the most part it robs the album of most of its urgency and dulls its outrage.
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While Smith's voice teases out unexpected depth from quotidian phrases and familiar, all-too-justified outrage with current American politics, the band's music can't do the same with the vintage rock riffs recycled here.
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UncutWhen Trampin' doesn't work, though, it plods, though never as badly as the worst bits of Gung Ho. [May 2004, p.94]
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MojoIn a way, Trampin' is to this decade what Horses was to the '70s: a repudiation of its time, and the promise of a way forward. [Apr 2004, p.98]
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Q MagazineA brooding collection. [May 2004, p.108]
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It's the modest, more melodic songs that triumph.
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Smith's approach to the bellicosity post 9/11 contains - surprisingly for someone so full of piss and thunder - a fair amount of faith, hope and pleas for tolerance.
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Trampin' hardly counts as a misstep, but it's her least impressive showing since her return.
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SpinAt 57, Smith can still find the ecstatic in the everyday, and she's no longer adrift in the mandolin wind. [May 2004, p.109]
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Entertainment WeeklyReaches heights of lyrical grace... but also sinks into pretentious polemics. [30 Apr 2004, p.161]
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The WireA dull, clunky, unjustifiably smug AOR rock album: no more, no less. [#243, p.71]
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At 57 Ms. Smith has made the most diverse music of her career.
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Trampin' is much too formulaic, too willing to leave the power of Smith's songwriting in words and not back it up musically.
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BlenderFor years, Smith has excelled in her profession as rock's great heroine; at its best, Trampin' sounds more like leisure time, but it still pays off. [May 2004, p.132]
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Smith's vision is as rapturous as ever, and it receives its most focused, impassioned treatment here.
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Trampin'... is not a flashy album, and sometimes what's meant to be stately is sluggish instead. But though the revolutionary jolt of her early work is in abeyance, her fire still burns.
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Despite the overbearing subject matter of war, morality and protest "Trampin'" doesn't feel like a particularly heavy album.
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This is a brooding, thoughtful work, a band stripped bare, naked music and raw emotion, beautifully sung and played with the command of a band that knows less is more is the key to great rock'n'roll.
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Trampin' is an improvement on Gung Ho, Smith's previous release, if only because she hasn't sounded this committed and politically charged in years.
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Trampin' has her sounding revitalized, her contagious energy striking sparks off her longtime musical collaborators.
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No, she hasn't regained her sense of humor, but aren't you fast losing yours?
User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 8
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Mixed: 2 out of 8
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Negative: 0 out of 8
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stevegNov 14, 2004
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TerryDMay 16, 2004
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JDalyMay 2, 2004One of her best...ranks up there with Radio Ethiopia and Gone Again, just a bit below Horses