Spread the news, guitar fans: the raveup lives! Truce is a surprisingly lively blues-rock workout from Jack Bruce and Robin Trower, a pair of U.K. veterans who might have been counted out too soon.

The reference points here are, per usual, Cream (Bruce's glory days) and Jimi Hendrix (Trower's main man), but the beast treads more agilely now and doesn't slog quite so often. Perhaps we have drummer Reg Isadore to thank for that. In any case, yesterday's moribund rhythms have given way to the more fleet beat of the new age. "Thin Ice" could conceivably even be a hit (catch the stuttering guitar intro that's borrowed from Foreigner's chart-topper, "Urgent").

Despite all this, Trower continues to annex acres of wah-wah from the Hendrix estate. There's lots of chunky rhythm riffing, around which the guitarist weaves his sinewy leads. Instrumentally, Bruce sounds a bit thin, or maybe someone involved didn't realize the full possibilities of his fat bass sound (with Cream, he'd ooze it all over the place). Otherwise, he's in fine form and can still knock out a decent tune. Fans of Harmony Row-era Jack Bruce will appreciate "Shadows Touching," whose massed guitars meet the singer's expressive melismata on some fog-shrouded musical moor. Bruce's operatic Scotsman's tenor also propels crunch-rockers like "Gonna Shut You Down" and conveys a wry alley-cat's irony in "Fat Gut."

With a little more attention to songwriting – e.g., a few numbers with the reach of "Shadows Touching," even a few more songs (thirty-two minutes' worth of music is no bargain)–Truce could be endorsed without qualification. (RS 367)

PARKE PUTERBAUGH