THE only people likely to be disappointed by the new Robert Plant album are those who detected rare moments of personal revelation in its predecessor, Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar. With those two releases, Plant surpassed the total of studio releases by the legendary band he fronted, Led Zeppelin. If he makes no attempt to recreate the hard rock screaming he was capable of in his youth, there is nonetheless a remarkable range to both his music and his vocals.
With Seth Lakeman joining his Sensational Shapeshifters band, alongside Albanian cellist Redi Hasa, there is a folk feel to some of the tracks, but opener The May Queen is patently a nod to his Zep past, while others have clear kinship with the T-Bone Burnett-produced duo album with Alison Krauss. His female foil here, on a cover of Ersel Hickey’s Bluebirds Over the Mountain that is about as far from the Beach Boys version as possible, is Chrissie Hynde, while elsewhere he duets with himself, sounding ludicrously youthful on Dance with You Tonight.
The title track continues Plant’s fascination with Eastern instruments and rhythms, while the bluesy Keep It Hid marries an odd synthesiser pulse with funk guitar and closer Heaven Sent (not the Paul Haig song) is Melody Gardot meets Massive Attack.
There is even some socio-political commentary on Carving Up the World Again and, probably, on Bones of Saints, the set’s most forthright rocker. Plant brings his band and back catalogue to Glasgow and Perth next month.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here