ALBUM REVIEW: ROBERT PLANT – Carry Fire

ALBUM REVIEW: ROBERT PLANT – Carry Fire
Warner Bros
2017
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
9/10

Robert Plant’s love of folk and world music has been well documented since Led Zeppelin II dropped way back in 1969, and has come to the fore in his records more and more in the past decade or so.

Billed under his own name, not “and the Sensational Shape Shifters,” as his last few have been (even though they are here playing all the exotic instruments your imagination could conjure up), Plant sounds vital and adventurous – far more so than just about any of his class of ’69 contempories.

Uniquely cut from the same cloth as Leonard Cohen was – in the sense that his voice and writing style are instantly recognisable, his poetry evocative and reverent, even when carnal, and his music always fiercely independent of popular trends or artifice – Plant’s body of work is essential and moving.

His days of hiding from his Golden Rock God past are over: here he revels in big guitar riffs, but adventurously couples them with Appalachian rhythms, African blues and Middle Eastern grooves, whilst lyrically there is a strong undercurrent of the clock ticking, time running out, mortality rearing its unwelcome head.

With music as unique and engaging, soul-lifting and interesting and vital as this, why anyone still calls for a Led Zep reunion is beyond me. I’d rather listen to Plant’s solo work any day.

Category: CD Reviews