Robert Plant travels down another dusty road with Saving Grace
By NICK TAVARES
STATIC and FEEDBACK Editor
The familiarity of a road frequently traveled can be intoxicating. It’s safe, comfortable, relaxing, familiar. And those rides are needed now and then, for sure. But what that kind of trip lacks is that rush of the unfamiliar, turning a corner and seeing something new that could shed light on all the roads of the past.
This is essentially how Robert Plant has treated his solo career for the past couple of decades. Where others of his generation are content to take the payday, play the hits and leave them smiling, Plant is out here still traversing the quieter corners of the world, searching for a sound he can take and reinterpret and give a new voice. It’s not a recipe for stadium success, but it’s a particular kind of quest that he’s earned after a lifetime in music.
Happily, his approach keeps paying dividends. His latest record, Saving Grace, made with the band Saving Grace and vocalist Suzi Dian, is another marker on his long road that almost thrilling in its quiet, confident sense of adventure.
The record feels inviting immediately on its first listen, but its magic reveals itself on repeated listens, where the quirks and intricacies of all the influences meld together to form something beyond your typical, traditional folk album.
Plant is the rare artist who has excelled as both a writer and an interpreter, and he plays the latter role here. Ever the traveler, he’s collected a group of folk and blues songs and again turned them on their heads, creating a distinct feel that feels new and still so distinctly him at this stage in his career.
More folk-minded than his work with his previous backing band, the Sensational Space Shifters, it's no-less inventive, but focused on a more acoustic setting befitting the English/Welsh midlands aesthetic here. Where other artists in a similar situation might pick material that’s, say, less than engaging, Plant’s taste remains impeccable, choosing songs that never feel obvious and always suit the mood he’s trying to create.
In addition to an impressive cache of folk and blues traditionals, he reaches back to Moby Grape’s “It’s a Beautiful Day Today,” dramatically reworking it to give it a dramatic country sheen. Meanwhile, he dips into Low's catalog with "Everybody's Song," likely the most striking track on the record, after interpreting the band's "Silver Rider" and "Monkey" with such force on his 2010 record Band of Joy. He takes “Chevrolet,” made famous by Taj Mahal, among others, and dials back the bluesy bravado in favor of a more earnest approach, trading in its final verses for an opportunity to let Saving Grace’s musicianship thrive.
And the band certainly carry their weight across the 10 songs here. Dian provides a worthy foil for Plant’s now-familiar tenor and gets plenty of space in the spotlight, especially with her lead vocal on "Too Far For You.” And in deference to the band Plant has worked with for the past few years, guitarist Tony Kelsey gets a turn at the mic as well on Blind Willie Johnson’s "Soul of a Man," featuring Plant's underrated harmonica work as a bonus.
All of the band’s strengths come together frequently throughout the record, of course. That haunting groove that only Plant can seemingly summon comes through on “As I Roved Out,” the band laying an eerie bed for Plant’s and Dian’s vocals to weave together. On the closing “Gospel Plough,” he takes the spiritual from the American South, channels it through an eerie drone and infuses it, again, with the Celtic lineage he has come to exemplify so well. As their voices give out, the music surrenders to the sounds of nature, before a shadow of the band waves back to close the program.
Again, the entire record is rooted in Plant’s past. What makes it so refreshing is that, instead of retreading past glories in a less-than-flattering way, he’s traveling further down the darker roads in search of a more interesting story. He’s aware, of course, that he was in no less than Led Zeppelin — see if you can catch the quick reference to “Trampled Under Foot” within — but it’s not a hackneyed attempt at a return to form. He’s done that, and it was incredible. He’s traveled a lot of incredible routes since that ship landed, though, and he’s more than made his case to have this latest chapter be heard.
E-mail Nick Tavares at nick@staticandfeedback.com