And here it is.  We’ve had the tasters, but did they really prepare us for what a Few Tears of Eros – the fourth album from Iowan singer-songwriter Trevor Sensor – has in store?  Probably not, I’d say…

Release Date:  6^th August 2025

Label: High Black Desert Music

Format:  Vinyl / Digital

WORTH THE WAIT…

We’ve already had a good deal of prior warning of this, the 4^th album from Iowan singer-songwriter, Trevor Sensor.  Back in May, we described The Farm, the lead single and first preview of new album, A Few Tears Of Eros as: “…a rich chunk of bluesy rock” and “an enticing taster of things to come.” 

The excitement became even more intense in June, when follow-up single, Heaven’s a Big Disgrace, slipped across our desk., prompting us to suggest that, had the song been written 50 years ago, it would have been a sure-fire smash hit.  And, now, the long-awaited album is with us at last.  Has it been worth the wait?  Definitely, I’d say, but A Few Tears of Eros packs quite a few punches that we certainly hadn’t bargained for.

AN ALBUM ABOUT LOVE?

A Few Tears of Eros is an album about love or, more precisely: “An exploration of love in a dejected and atomized world.  Eros: the Greek god of love and desire, basis for the term ‘erotic,’ encompasses more than just the sensual pleasures.  It is the vitality of life, the energy of life, in what drives human endeavors forward.  The expenditure of that energy is our business and the excess of our accursed share.  How the excess is dealt with in today’s landscape, and the wide variety of  neurotics such behaviour has created, is the album’s focus.”

Now: that’s an explanation that I struggled to understand before I listened to A Few Tears Of Eros but, now I’ve spent some quality time with the album, it makes a whole lot more sense.

LURKS BENEATH THE SURFACE…

Speaking of the thoughts and emotions that dominated his psyche as he wrote and recorded A Few Tears Of Eros, Trevor had this to say: “We’ve lost patience for just about everything, including love.  A lot of songs I hear deal with the beginnings or aftermaths of romance, but hardly what happens in between.  The yearning and heartbreak are all fine and well, but you get older and become involved in the thralls of hum-drum life building.  What lurks beneath the surface of happily-ever-afters is what interests me. 

Rimbaud once said that love has to be reinvented.  Unfortunately, I think our nature is inescapable.  Hardly anybody wants to be free and dance like a pagan – not for long anyway.  On the other hand, many of us lack commitment towards any sort of life… there’s some amount of regret no matter what we choose.  Something else is oppressing us.  Inevitably, we all retire from our excesses.”

And if, after reading that quote, you’ve formed the impression that A Few Tears Of Eros is no ‘easy-listening’ experience, you’d be bang-on.  Prepare to have your senses – and your preconceptions – subjected to a rigorous programme of stress-testing…

A STIMULATING LISTEN

On its musical credentials alone, A Few Tears Of Eros is a stimulating listen.  Trevor summarises its influences as: “…jazz, blue-eyed soul and old FM radio” and, if you want that putting into layman’s terms, I’s suggest that you think along the lines of Dylan, Steely Dan, Tom Waits and Warren Zevon – all with added maniacal edge.

AN INTERESTING – BUT BUMPY – RIDE

The big orchestral intro to opening track When I Have The Gall – the latest of the three singles to preview the album – made me question whether I’d walked into a movie theatre by mistake.  I hadn’t, of course, and the song soon settled into a lush piano ballad, with Trevor’s smoky voice sitting front and centre.  His lyrics: “I was given a troubled start, on my sleeve – a bleeding heart.  My old man used to beat me down, crush my dreams into the ground,” are self-reflective and highly self-critical and are the perfect preparation for the interesting, often bumpy, ride that lies ahead for the listener.

We’ve already raved over June’s single, the stomping rocker Heaven’s A Big Disgrace, within these pages and it’s safe to say that it’s a song that gets better with every listen.  Dylan’s presence is everywhere, particularly within Trevor’s writing and vocal stylings, and the shuffling drums and soaring slide guitar place us firmly within Highway 61 territory.

STEELY DAN AND NASAL LENNON

The flavour of Steely Dan would be even more pronounced than it already is in the engaging-yet-disturbing Schmuck for Life, if it wasn’t for Trevor’s manic, frantic vocals.  The song’s lyrics tell the story of a performer who’s lost his way and it’s clear from Trevor’s delivery of them, that the performer has also lost his mind along the way.

We loved lead single, The Farm, when we first heard it in May and, once again, we can confirm that the song is another slow-burner that matures with every play.  In keeping with its title, the song has a country flavour – but it’s country of the desperate and desolate variety.  The nasal-Lennon vocal affections still come over loudly and clearly, especially when Trevor sings the “Told me to get a job – it won’t do me no harm” refrain, and the guitar solo is awesome!

UNRAVEL THOSE LYRICS!

Acoustic and electric guitars blend together nicely on This Is A Dark Matter – one of the album’s more overtly Dylan-esque numbers.  And, with lyrics like: “Perhaps today or tomorrow then, I’ll come a-knockin’ on your coffin again – as if I didn’t say it before, while dressed up in orphan’s clothes,” there’s no shortage of Dylan-like verbal enigma, either.

Piano and thunderous drums lend a ‘Mr Kite’ fairground vibe to the unhinged Now That I’m Naked.  Trevor is in a Holy Modal Rounders mood as a screams out the lyrics and he gives it everything he’s got.  Then, by way of complete contrast, the pace is dialed right back for the folky Thomas Park.  Trevor reverts to his natural voice and all seems well – that is, until you try to unravel lyrics like: “I was a child on your floor; your mother never dines with a whore…”

DYSFUNCTION REINSTATED

The jazzy When The War Gets Done is, perhaps, my pick of the bunch on A Few Tears Of Eros.  Slow, melodic piano, sleazy trumpet and the gentlest, simplest of drum rhythms provide the instrumental canvas over which Trevor half-whispers, half screams his deranged lyrics.  It’s thoroughly intriguing.  And his voice assumes an almost cartoon-like quality for the equally-deranged Trampin’.  There’s a Warren Zevon quality to lyrics like: “Have yourself a party with couples from the church.  Throw your keys into the bowl and get a service worth,” and Trevor delivers them whilst the band play a merry, stomping, tune.

Described as “…a sinister tale stolen from the back pages of Donald Fagan’s mind,” New York Mourning is, as you’d expect, another Steely Dan-inspired song.  The instrumentation is cool, controlled and sophisticated and even Trevor manages to apply an admirable dose of vocal restraint.  And it almost seems like the anguish has dissipated completely when Trevor kicks off the heartwarming Take All My Love with a few lines that extol the pleasures of brotherly love.  It doesn’t last of course, as, with statements like: “Tore my old shirt.  You threw a punch at me and it hurt,” the default state of dysfunction is reinstated.

LET’S FINISH AS WE BEGAN…

The spirit of Bob Dylan haunts almost every groove of A Few Tears Of Eros, but nowhere is that spirit more vivid than on the jazz-tinged Too Many Years of Drinkin’ and Cryin’.  Trevor’s lyrics even reference TS Eliot, a prominent Dylan touchstone.  The backing, though is jazzy and relentless and the organ that cuts in for the last few bars does so with an air of finality.

But it isn’t quite over yet; Keepin’ By Your Door brings A Few Tears Of Eros to a close in the same manner that it started – with a piano ballad.  Like a hybrid of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and Let It Be, it’s almost certainly the album’s most conventional, accessible, song.  And Trevor sings with passion, yet with his feet planted firmly on the ground, as he delivers his final conclusion: “I’ll give everything, including my love… but I’m keepin’ by your door.”

Watch the official video to The Farm – the album’s lead single – below:

Trevor Sensor online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / Spotify

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