Walter Trout 'Sign of the Times' album review: veteran bluesman proves he's just as relevant as ever

At 74, Walter Trout could be forgiven for resting on reputation. Yet on ‘Sign of the Times’, Trout shows little inclination towards hanging up his guitar and going through the motions of nostalgia in his twilight years. Armed with a rich history from the road, near-fatal illness, and a discography that now stretches past 30 albums, he’s still finding a way to be relevant and use blues music as a tool to give his spin on this crazy world we live in. As a result, the album is an unflinching snapshot of modern anxiety, delivered with the urgency of an artist still searching for truth via the fretboard.

From the opening blast of 'Artificial', Trout sounds less like a weary veteran and more like a man with unfinished business. It’s a scathing meditation on artificial intelligence and cultural fakery, set to snarling guitar work that recalls his most furious moments with John Mayall. The title track is just as confrontational—industrial fuzz and dissonant riffs evoke unease, as if to sonically mirror the turbulence he sees outside his studio window.

Despite commenting on the state of the world in his work, he has always remained non-partisan, allowing the listener to dig deep, take the right path, and rediscover our humanity and kinship with each other. This ongoing theme urges us all to pull together. This time, there’s perhaps a tinge of anger and sadness that we are still doing the same shit to each other and the world is arguably in more of a mess now than it ever was; yet Trout strives to get us to touch base with our humanity. Even if he was the lone voice in the wilderness on Judgement Day, I suspect he’d still be there, guitar in hand, trying to bring joy and bring people together through music.

'Sign of the Times' isn’t all fire and brimstone. Trout knows when to drop the volume and expose the heart. ‘Mona Lisa, Smile’ shimmers with mandolin, accordion, and violin, offering a tender, almost folky respite. “Hurt No More” digs into Trout’s history of addiction with brutal honesty, yet emerges with a hopeful glimmer—proof that personal demons can be confronted without sacrificing melody. Meanwhile, “Too Bad” strips everything back to a Delta blues and touches base with tradition. The ‘Hightech Woman’ connects to his earlier concerns about AI and it all going to Hell in a hand cart, but this time the playful lyrics point out how technology moves to fast, feeling like a man out of time, but also reconnecting to the source: and we could all do with a bit of low tech time!

Where some legacy artists retreat into safe retrospection, Trout still looks outward and inward. ‘Sign of the Times’ is thunderous, soulful, and unafraid to confront the world as it is. Trout may be in the autumn of his career, but ‘Sign of the Times’ sounds like an artist still burning at full flame. He may be a low-tech man, but this album proves that he’s still as relevant as ever.