{"id":5465,"date":"2025-09-25T15:45:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T15:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/robert-plant-saving-grace-reviewed-the-zeppelin-frontmans-musical-journey-continues-151567\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T15:45:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T15:45:03","slug":"robert-plant-saving-grace-reviewed-the-zeppelin-frontmans-musical-journey-continues-151567","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/robert-plant-saving-grace-reviewed-the-zeppelin-frontmans-musical-journey-continues-151567\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Plant & Saving Grace reviewed: a new fellowship and a new quest for the Zeppelin frontman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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From West Midlands clubs to cavernous American stadiums, from the wasted land of the Sahara to the glitz of Nashville \u2013 not to mention the darkest depths of Mordor and over the hills where the spirits fly \u2013 Robert Plant<\/strong><\/a> has been on quite the journey. When globe-trotting gets old, though, the only thing to do is to come home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The only thing to do is to come home<\/h2>\n

From West Midlands clubs to cavernous American stadiums, from the wasted land of the Sahara to the glitz of Nashville \u2013 not to mention the darkest depths of Mordor and over the hills where the spirits fly \u2013 Robert Plant<\/strong><\/a> has been on quite the journey. When globe-trotting gets old, though, the only thing to do is to come home.<\/p>\n

Plant\u2019s new album, his first with his current group Saving Grace<\/strong>, is a return to the promised land, located somewhere around Kidderminster and the Wyre Forest. It\u2019s a reconnection for Plant with the musicians of the region, and a rediscovery of some of the songs of his youth. It also revitalises his craft, if that were needed.<\/p>\n

Saving Grace<\/strong>\u2019s start was inauspicious, probably just how the low-key Plant would like it: he met stringed-instrument master Matt Worley in a pub, where the pair bonded over The Incredible String Band<\/strong>, Dave Swarbrick<\/strong> and Sandy Denny<\/strong>, before Worley introduced the singer to guitarist Tony Kelsey<\/strong>. The rest of the group, mostly local players, soon slotted into place.<\/p>\n

Plant would rather his name wasn\u2019t even on the album cover<\/h2>\n

Over the last 20 years, Plant has become a disciple of harmony singing, learning from his collaborative work with Alison Krauss<\/strong> on 2007\u2019s Raising Sand<\/strong> and 2021\u2019s Raise The Roof<\/strong>, and with Patty Griffin<\/strong> on 2010\u2019s Band Of Joy<\/strong>. Saving Grace is no different, except that Suzi Dian is Plant\u2019s first English singing partner. At times gliding and honey-sweet, at others jaggedly melancholic, her voice is perhaps the finest partner to Plant\u2019s since Sandy Denny tackled \u201cThe Battle Of Evermore<\/strong>\u201d at Olympic Studios in early 1971.<\/p>\n

The group started touring in February 2019, playing small shows to try out material without the pressure of crystallising their art in the studio. It was, you might imagine, like the good old days. Saving Grace\u2019s leader is a man who could be selling out stadiums, presenting the songs of Led Zeppelin<\/strong> at the Las Vegas Sphere with immersive Tolkien-inspired visuals, but instead he quite brilliantly chooses to play the Leeds HiFi Club, Dorking Town Hall, Newtown Theatr Hafren. This is a man who\u2019d prefer to disappear into the stage curtains of the Wimborne Minster Tivoli Theatre and allow the other musicians to shine. Pyrotechnics be damned, a backdrop of a bison will do just fine. Plant would rather his name wasn\u2019t even on the album cover if it weren\u2019t for the commercial benefits.<\/p>\n

In these mainly smaller venues over the last six years (global pandemic allowing), the group\u2019s sets have included Zeppelin tunes \u2013 usually \u201cFour Sticks<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cGallows Pole<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cRamble On<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cThe Rain Song<\/strong>\u201d \u2013 alongside a host of covers that don\u2019t appear on their debut album: Neil Young<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cFor The Turnstiles<\/strong>\u201d, the traditional \u201cThe Cuckoo<\/strong>\u201d, the Bahamian closing section of The Incredible String Band\u2019s \u201cA Very Cellular Song<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cCrawling King Snake<\/strong>\u201d as channelled by John Lee Hooker<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Middle Eastern banjo riffs scurrying over growls of baritone guitar<\/h2>\n

From this wealth of material, their debut album takes 10 songs, tracked in a Cotswold barn and then mostly redone on the Welsh borders when the barn sessions proved a little too rough fidelity-wise. Half of the material consists of traditional or blues numbers, a couple are taken from Plant\u2019s \u201960s enthusiasms and a few more from his more recent favourites. It all begins with \u201cChevrolet<\/strong>\u201d, and Worley\u2019s banjo, a crucial texture on the album: slightly overdriven, with no hokey American ersatz, and closer in sound to its African antecedents. Co-written by Memphis Minnie<\/strong> \u2013 who of course also penned \u201cWhen The Levee Breaks<\/strong>\u201d \u2013 and later adapted by Donovan<\/strong> for \u201cHey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)<\/strong>\u201d, it\u2019s a classic blues, but Saving Grace turn it into something droning and stranger. Even as Plant and Dian repeat their devotional promises to \u201cjust do something for you girl<\/em>\u201d, the mood is minor-key and a little threatening.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I Roved Out<\/strong>\u201d, a traditional folk song inspired by Sam Amidon<\/strong>\u2019s 2013 arrangement, is darker still and utterly thrilling. The drums are almost martial, the guitars ominous, and strange drones cluster at the edges of the sound. It\u2019s subtle and captivating at the same time, especially when the singers take a solo verse before the music comes crashing back in, Middle Eastern banjo riffs scurrying over growls of baritone guitar.<\/p>\n

The primmest folk song here, \u201cI Never Will Marry<\/strong>\u201d, foregrounds the massed harmonies of Plant, Dian and Worley, backed only by drifts of Kelsey\u2019s echoed electric guitar, sounding very much like Alan Sparhawk<\/strong>\u2019s work with Low<\/strong> (more on them soon). The closing spiritual \u201cGospel Plough<\/strong>\u201d is a tender, smouldering thing, and one of the handful of tracks that could sit comfortably on Raising Sand.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no clearer demonstration of Plant\u2019s humility<\/h2>\n

The group also tackle more modern material. Plant delves back into his own youth for a gorgeous, plaintive take on \u201cIt\u2019s A Beautiful Day Today<\/strong>\u201d from Moby Grape<\/strong>\u2019s \u201969<\/strong> album, and zoom into the 21st century with The Low Anthem<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cTicket Taker<\/strong>\u201d, Martha Scanlan<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cHigher Rock<\/strong>\u201d and Sarah Siskind<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cToo Far From You<\/strong>\u201d. The latter pair are led by Dian, with Plant skilfully providing backing vocals and occasional lead lines. Likewise, their take on Blind Willie Johnson<\/strong>\u2019s rolling blues \u201cSoul Of A Man<\/strong>\u201d is sung by Worley, in a voice not unlike Plant\u2019s, while he and Dian interject with keening backing vocals. There\u2019s no clearer demonstration of Plant\u2019s humility, or of his enthusiasm for being in a proper group.<\/p>\n

While these blues, folk and country moments are excellent, the most striking offering on Saving Grace is its most primal, namely their savage version of Low\u2019s \u201cEverybody\u2019s Song<\/strong>\u201d. Though recorded with mainly acoustic instruments, led by the Latin American cuatro, it somehow matches \u2013 or even surpasses \u2013 the apocalyptic mood of the Duluth band\u2019s feedback-strafed original. Plant has now covered three songs from Low\u2019s 2005 album The Great Destroyer<\/strong> \u2013 just wait until he discovers their 12 other LPs \u2013 but this is no pale tribute. The group twist the verses into 6\/8 time to accommodate a vaguely Arabic vibe, but keep the shattered chorus in 4\/4. Guttural baritone guitar snakes its way through the song until the musicians slam into a violent stop\/start break that echoes the climactic guitar solo in \u201cWhole Lotta Love<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n

That was almost 60 years ago, though, and Plant has a different destination in mind, one that Saving Grace seem well equipped to get him to. What they do as a group is far from the sparkle of Plant\u2019s Nashville collaborators or the exotic, ambient textures of the Strange Sensation<\/strong> or the Sensational Space Shifters<\/strong>; this is something darker, sparer, a little more monochrome in sound, a lot more English. These musicians plucked from the local Midlands scene, just as Plant and John Bonham<\/strong> were all those years ago, turn out to be his most powerful outfit in decades. It\u2019s hard to see a limit to their powers, such is their skill with both the sweet and the sour, the delicate and the bruising. Perhaps the only thing that can topple them is Plant\u2019s roving eye, ever seeking new challenges as he moves ceaselessly forward.<\/p>\n

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