The central track on this, Plant’s ninth solo album since the passing of Led Zep, is the splenetic ‘Tin Pan Valley’, in which he buries the memory of past triumphs and even turns his back on his former accomplices (“My peers may flirt with cabaret... I’m moving up to higher ground, I must escape their hell”). Fine sentiments indeed, but how odd that his most impressive solo outing to date should also be the one most hung-up on his past.
‘Shine It All Around’ is another flashback, all plank-spanked drums but let down by uninspired lyrics. ‘Takamba’ is solid blues-rock meets the Arab world, with superbly sinuous guitar figures, and ‘Another Tribe’ is a more acoustic take on a similar blend, with additional 'Kashmir'-lite strings. ‘The Enchanter’ atmospherically underpins space-blues guitars with a haunting desert feel, while there are further echoes of North Africa in the magnificently bluesy ‘Somebody Knocking’.
‘Mighty Rearranger’ is a beguiling smorgasbord of snaking blues guitars a la John Lee, with a high-stepping beat, a searing blues harp solo and fine bar-room piano. ‘All The King’s Horses’, with its clichéd title, takes us back to those fey days at Bryn-Y-Aur, and ‘Let The Four Winds Blow’ offers more retro-centric rock action. Yet throughout the entire album Plant’s voice is in impeccable form and his cohorts The Strange Sensation (possessed of impeccable Massive Attack/Portishead connections), get the sonic details right most of the time.
Plant is dealing with his cumbersome past, not by denying it but by subsuming it into fresh-work and overlaying it with rich layers that tell you as much about where he’s at now than where he’s been. Messrs. Stewart, McCartney, Jagger, Elton, Osbourne et al, should take note.