Patti Smith’s Trampin’ Honors Its Subjects Too Much

Patti Smith’s Trampin’ is a record about reverence, and that reverence comes with a cost. The album spends its 11 tracks honoring figures ranging from Gandhi to Dylan, and the weight of that homage sometimes drags the songs down. This is not a protest record in the way her earlier work was. It is a quieter, more reflective set, and that shift is both its strength and its weakness.

Opening With Jubilee

The album opens with “Jubilee,” a four-and-a-half-minute track that sets the tone: measured, theatrical, and a little distant. “Mother Rose” follows, a five-minute song that leans into the religious imagery that runs through the record without ever quite committing to it.

“Stride of the Mind” is the shortest track here at just over three minutes, a brief burst of energy that feels like a palate cleanser after the opener. Then comes “Cartwheels,” the longest track so far at six minutes, which stretches out into a slow, deliberate meditation.

Gandhi and the Long Tracks

“Gandhi” is the clear highlight of the album’s middle stretch. At nine minutes, it is the longest track on the record, and it earns every second of its length. The song is patient, building its melody slowly around the figure it honors.

“Trespasses” and “My Blakean Year” sit in the middle of the record without doing much to justify their presence. Both are competent, but neither rises above the material they are working with.

“Cash” is a shorter, sharper track, and it benefits from that brevity. “Peaceable Kingdom” closes the main body of the record on a note of calm, though it doesn’t quite land with the force of the songs around it.

Radio Baghdad and the Close

“Radio Baghdad” is the other standout. At 12 minutes, it is the longest track on the record, and it asks more of the listener than almost anything else here. It is sprawling, improvised, and it rewards patience.

The closer, “Trampin’,” brings the album to a quiet end. At just over two minutes, it is a simple, spiritual coda that feels earned after everything that came before it.

The Verdict

Trampin’ is a record that respects its subjects too much. The reverence that made her early work feel urgent has been replaced with a studied distance. The long tracks — “Gandhi,” “Radio Baghdad” — are ambitious, and they mostly succeed. But the middle of the record drags, and the album never quite finds the fire that defined her best work.

It is a solid record, not a great one. The highlights are real, but they don’t carry the whole thing.

album review · classic rock · folk rock · Patti Smith · reverence