Time’s a loop, not a line. Band of Joy takes its name from Robert Plant’s first pre-Zep band with John Bonham, but it’s no nostalgic attempt to recapture garage glory days. These 12 songs are a lesson in aging with grace: a braiding of Avalonian and backwoods folk, avant rock and the odd dash of soul or primal rockabilly. Like the lovely Raising Sand collaboration with Alison Krauss (on which Plant met current collaborator Buddy Miller), it’s all in the songs and the sounds.
The production on Band Of Joy is immaculate, a masterclass in electrified acoustic roots music that even T Bone couldn’t have bettered. The layers of 12 string acoustic and banjo on the Appalachian-sounding original ‘Central Two-O-Nine’ and the standard ‘Cindy, I’ll Marry You Someday’ make the mouth water. Even an old chestnut like the Babineaux brothers’ ‘You Can’t Buy My Love’ is reinforced with scuzzy bass and rattling snares. More to the point, Plant’s voice has greyed beautifully. He may not hit the Valkyrie notes anymore, but his phrasing is weathered and wise. The plaintive tone struck on Gregory Vanderpool’s ‘The Only Sound That Matters’, for instance, cuts right to the heart of the lyric.
As for the material itself, the real surprise is a brace of Low tracks: dark, chimerical versions of ‘Silver Rider’ and ‘Monkey’ that suggest Neil Young backed by Sonic Youth and produced by Lanois. Elsewhere, Theodore Tilton’s ‘Even This Shall Pass Away’ is rendered as cosmic gospel-funk, and a spectral take on the traditional ‘Satan Your Kingdom Must Down’ echoes Zep’s ‘Gallows Pole’ and rivals David Johansen’s ‘Oh Death’ as the eeriest folk recording of the 21st Century.
Here’s to the lion in winter.
Key track: ‘Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down’