"Starting with 'They Call Us the Working Class,' one of the most direct
and heartfelt condemnations to date of our sorry economic state, Trout
serves up a combination of new compositions, unreleased live versions
of fan favorites and live-in-studio radio performances. The last cut,
another new Trout composition, is So Afraid of the Darkness,' in which
the blues-rocker airs it out on the fretboard with one of the most
blistering solos he's ever played. There's been a tendency to lump
Trout in with Coco Montoya, Anthony Gomes and other axmen...This
collection should elevate Trout above that crowd." (Jeff
Johnson/Chicago Sun-Times)

"Walter Trout's 'Unspoiled by Progress' (Provogue, B) revels in those
head-spinning concert improvs that drive jam-band fans to ecstasy."
(Jonathan Takiff/Philadelphia Inquirer)

"The only thing more amazing than the 15 years that guitarist Walter
Trout spent sessioning and gigging for the likes of Big Mama Thornton,
John Lee Hooker, Canned Heat and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers is the 20
year solo career he's amassed since striking out on his own. Throughout
his tenure as a sideman and into his work under his own name, Trout has
based his reputation around doing unique things within the Blues form
as well taking well-worn genre cliches and casting them a new light.
And while Trout never achieved the kind of universality that Stevie Ray
Vaughan enjoyed in his all too brief time in the limelight, there's no
question that he deserved it...Trout's studio work is exemplary without
question but he clearly has established his reputation on stage, and
any random track on 'Progress' proves it...Unspoiled by Progress is not
quite a live album, not quite a hits compilation, not quite a
retrospective, which is sort of metaphorical of Walter Trout's career;
never quite what you think but always astonishing." (Brian
Baker/Cincinnati CityBeat)

"The raw, intimate recording presents a phenomenal guitarist already at
the peak of his powers but a decent singer who would become much
stronger in the years to come." (Mike Cote/Colorado Biz Magazine")