Plantations

I’ve been listening to Robert Plant’s latest album this week: Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar. This is his tenth solo album since leaving Led Zeppelin (not including collaborations) and it would be easy for him to be simply going through the motions but that simply isn’t his way. The sound is far removed from his Led Zeppelin days but he still has something new to offer. There aren’t many artists who have been around that long that can say the same.

As a solo artist Robert Plant’s career has been made up of several distinct stages but with an obvious progression of style and influence throughout. His first solo album, Pictures at Eleven, came out in 1982 and in many ways can be seen as progressing from the softer rock style of Led Zeppelin’s last album. The key personnel here were guitarist and co-composer Robbie Blunt and drummer Phil Collins (on loan from Genesis). Whilst Pictures was a solid if unremarkable affair the follow-up, 1983’s Principle of Moments, was actually rather good although with very much a radio-friendly AOR feel. It even afforded him an appearance on Top Of The Pops performing Big Log although the standout tracks for me would be Other Arms and In The Mood. His third album was something of a departure in the form of Shaken 'n' Stirred. It’s an album I’ve never quite taken to: the songs aren’t bad and I can cope with the overall sound which is closer to something like Talk Talk than mainstream rock but I’ve never taken to the harsh mid-80s digital synth sounds. Nevertheless, Little by Little was still a decent single.

1988 brought a new young band (and importantly Phil Johnstone as a key composer) and something of a reinvention in the form of Now and Zen. Heaven Knows, Tall Cool One and Ship Of Fools all made an impact on the singles charts but more importantly he started to perform Led Zeppelin songs in his live shows again. I saw him on the associated tour and he seemed genuinely pleased at the reception of songs old and new. 1990 brought a follow-up, the underrated Manic Nirvana which I always feel was his one solo album that was closest to the Led Zeppelin sound. However, it was his next album, 1993’s Fate of Nations that many regarded as his greatest album to date. This produced the hit single 29 Palms but the whole album works from start to finish and for once contains a rather strong political message as he was appalled both by the human and environmental tragedy of the first Gulf war.

Plant’s next project was the No Quarter album with Jimmy Page in 1994. This coincided with MTV’s “Unplugged” concerts and was essentially Led Zeppelin Unplugged but which they dubbed “Page and Plant Unledded”. As Zeppelin produced many folk-rock songs throughout their career an acoustic set would have been rather superfluous  but what they did produce on this album was a reimagining of old songs that Plant has gone back to throughout his later career: many utilising African musicians. This re-interpretation of old songs and several Moroccan influenced new ones was a key moment for Plant and the album remains a personal favourite of mine. The follow-up, 1998’s Walking into Clarksdale, is a selection of new songs written with Page and is mostly in a straight rock style. For me the album was something of a disappointment because, whilst the songs are decent enough, the production is rather flat and it often sounds little more than a demo. Whether that was the intention, I don’t know.

2002 brought a new solo album, Dreamland, with a new backing group, The Strange Sensation. This saw a collection of new songs combined with radical interpretations of songs that Plant covered early in his career such as Morning Dew and Hey Joe (his original version was later released on the second disk of the Sixty Six to Timbuktu compilation). The Strange Sensation were then augmented with seasoned session musicians and former members of The Cure, Cast and Portishead and produced what I still regard as Plant’s best solo album, 2005’s Mighty ReArranger. This is an interesting blend or World and rock music and also comes across as one of Plant’s angriest: partly due to another Gulf war and partly his disenchantment with the music industry – particularly the scathing Tin Pan Valley in which he showed the world he could still howl like a banshee when called upon.

In fact Plant would show that he had not lost his power as a hard rock singer when he performed a one off show with Led Zeppelin at London’s O2 arena in December 2007 but his next recording project was intriguing: an album of duets with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss called Raising Sand. It’s a surprising departure but the album actually works – and it is a definite co-production with each of the singers taking turns on lead vocals. The follow-up to this was 2010’s Band of Joy which took the Americana a stage further but this time with Folk-Rock singer (and later Plant’s partner) Patty Griffin taking over the female vocal role.

That brings us on to Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar which features The Sensational Space Shifters as the backing group – partly based on the Strange Sensation but now with a more world music feel to them – in no small part due to Gambian riti player Juldeh Camara. I had expected this to be something closer in style to the Mighty ReArranger album but it is actually a far gentler affair. The hardest rocking track is Turn It Up but that is somewhat an exception and the bulk of the tracks have a far gentler, more organic feel about hem which indicates that many of these tracks have gone through several iterations after starting life as jam sessions. Plant himself also sounds much more contemplative – often sounding as if he is saying farewell and looking back on life rather than to the future. This may be down to him breaking up with Griffin and returning to the UK but much may be down to him pondering that at 66 years of age he has probably performed for far longer than he is still likely to. Nevertheless there is much to like on this and some new territory for Plant with the piano ballad Stolen Kiss offering a kind of intimacy that would be hard to imagine from his early “lemon squeezing” days. The lead singles, Little Maggie and Rainbow were performed at this years Glastonbury festival and they have lost none of their live power with their transfer to the studio. Overall it's a satisfying album that will stand up to repeated plays.

It is all too easy for major artists to fall into the trap of money making nostalgia tours but Robert Plant is one of those rare beasts that has constantly strived to remain relevant. I think he has achieved that on Lullaby and I look forward to hearing these songs live when he performs in Glasgow in November.