Band of Joy (2 Discs) | Robert Plant

Robert Plant is back with his first album since 2007's six time Grammy Award winning "Raising Sand". Picking up where the critically acclaimed roots rock of "Raising Sand" - which sold 3 million worldwide, scooping the Grammy for Album of the Year - left off, "Band of Joy" was recorded in Nashville with a stellar cast of musicians. A timeless plunge into authentic Americana, the album was co-produced by Plant and Nashville legend and guitarist Buddy Miller. "Buddy's integral to this album, you can hear his taste all over the instrumentation," enthuses Plant. "Buddy's zone is beautiful, with a lot of reflections going back into mid-Fifties rockabilly, the singing fishermen and all the great country stuff, along with the soul and R&B from Memphis." As well as Miller, the Band of Joy is made up of multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott, who provides the mandolin, guitar, accordion, pedal, lap steel and banjo lines, country singer/songwriter Patty Griffin who adds the main vocal foils to Plant's lead parts, while Byron House plays bass and percussion comes from Marco Giovino. "Band of Joy" features intriguing new interpretations of songs from a wide range of sources. Opening with a throbbing rendition of Los Lobos's 'Angel Dance', the album encompasses the glittering drone-rock of Low's 'Silver Rider' and 'Monkey', the Fifties-style country-gospel harmonies which transform the Kelly Brothers' Sixties soul classic 'Falling in Love Again', the desolate banjo-driven interpretation of 'Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down', the transplanted English/Appalachian folk ballad 'Cindy, I'll Marry You Some Day', and jangling blues imagery of 'Central Two-0-Nine'. Robert Plant's most eclectic work so far, in a career that has constantly embraced the unexpected, it's an album which takes in continents of influence and oceans of emotional depth, taking the explorations of "Raising Sand" into bold new territory.