The memories of the original remain vivid and sweet, but the 2025 stereo mix of For Earth Below renders Robin Trower’s 1975 album virtually irrelevant. 

Both old and new are included in the new For Earth Below 50th Anniversary Edition, released in a variety of formats, including the three-disc version reviewed here. This iteration also includes includes five studio outtakes – what are perhaps the definitive takes of “It’s Only Money” and “Alethea” are among them – and Trower’s previously unreleased, March 16, 1975, gig in Los Angeles with singer/bassist James Dewar and drummer Bill Lordan. 

Producer Richard Whittaker deserves a medal for his fresh mix. Not only did he clean up and expand the sonic palette to make Trower’s guitar sing and boost Dewar and Lordan, but he extended or eliminated fade outs, giving the LP a live-in-studio feel and allowing listeners the opportunity to hear Trower’s guitar playing as it unfolded on the selected takes. 

The live gig brings out the best in Trower’s six-string virtuosity – that he is not regularly mentioned alongside Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan is a travesty – and allows Dewar to demonstrate Paul Rodgers was not in a class of one during his time with Free while Lordan takes drums solos that epitomize the ’70s concert experience. The recording is so pristine, Trower’s humming amplifier is audible beneath and between the sustained notes he plays on the balladic blues of “Daydream.” 

The concert features album tracks alongside such classics-in-waiting as “Day of the Eagle,” “Bridge of Sighs” and “Too Rolling Stoned” and casts the Trower band as one of blues-rock’s great, unsung power trios.