On
Mighty Rearranger, the core of the band
Robert Plant showcased on 2002's Dreamland -- and named the Strange Sensation -- is a full-blown expanded lineup that shares the bill with him. Guitarists
Justin Adams and
Skin Tyson, drummer
Clive Deamer, keyboardist
John Baggot, and bassist Billy Fuller help
Plant give listeners his most musically satisfying and diverse recording since, well,
Led Zeppelin's Physical Grafitti. The reference is not a mere platitude to
Plant's pedigree. The songs, production, and sequencing of the album overtly incorporates those sounds as well as those of Eastern modalism, Malian folk, guitar rock, R&B, and others, for inspiration -- and why shouldn't they?
Mighty Rearranger opens with "Another Tribe," a sociopolitical ballad that touches upon the textural string backdrops from
Zep's "Kashmir" and is fueled by Moroccan bendir drums.
Adams' guitar shifts it over to rock in the middle, but never crowds the crystalline lilting vocal. The single, "Shine It All Around," sports
Deamer's crunch and crack drums, while
Adams' canny emulation of
Jimmy Page's Les Paul toneography fills
Plant's sung and moaned lines with ferocity. But it is "Freedom Fries," with its startling percussive syncopation and juxtaposition of roots rockabilly blues and hard rock -- à la "Black Dog" -- that breaks the record wide open and shatters the sensual tension with pure Dionysian RAWK swagger. On "Tin Pan Valley,"
Baggot's whispering keyboard lines under
Plant's nocturnal moan set a mood -- slippery, sexy, undulating -- before
Deamer cracks through with cymbal and snare work that not only emulates
John Bonham, but evokes his power, unfurling the
Zep talons deeper into the core of the album. The beautiful balladry of "All the King's Horses" offers solid proof of
Plant's ability to reference the English folk tradition with elegance and taste, and his continued acumen for fine lyric writing. The acoustic guitars purposely kiss the same space that
Page did on "Over the Hills and Far Away" and "Goin' to California," but are balanced by
Adams' pastoral electric country fills. But here's the important part: the Zeppelin spirit that is seemingly ever present here takes nothing away from the startling imagination and creativity on
Mighty Rearranger -- it actually serves, rather than houses, the songs it adorns. And it's the songs, like the sultry slow stroll of "The Enchanter" and the North African-flavored rocker "Takamba," that matter.
Plant and Strange Sensation have painstakingly and energetically crafted an album that takes his full history into account, yet offers something living, breathing, and actually new. This is big rock music making an appearance on the scene agian. It's music that is full of itself, sneers at the competition, and pushes forward by acknowledging the full breadth of the music's tarted-up history. The dramatic "Let the Four Winds Blow" touches everything from early rock & roll to droning Delta blues to biker soundtrack music in a dramatic and utterly serious song. The title track uses the Malian guitar plank and turns it back on itself, pointing its gaze toward
John Lee Hooker,
Skip James, and the piano blues of
Otis Spann. The album closes with
Baggot's barroom blues piano that propels
Plant to pay a brief barrelhouse tribute to
Ray Charles on "Brother Ray."
Mighty Rearranger is a literate, ambitious, and sublimely vulgar exercise in how to make a mature yet utterly unfettered rock & roll album that takes chances, not prisoners, and apologizes for nothing. ~ Thom Jurek