I just picked this up today (best buy, 11.99) and I really like the album!! I think the band sounds really good and there are some great non traditional sounds and instruments on here. Robert’s voice is very good too, he sounds good in his range and very comfortable singing the songs.
Highlights on the cd for me are: fixin’ to die, song to the siren, darkness, darkness, hey joe, win my train fare home.
I definitely would recommend this cd to everyone …
what do you think of it?
Admittedly, I’ve only heard “Darkness Darkness” off the album, but if that’s any indication, Robert Plant deserves to be shot.
His version is such an inferior, lifeless version of this song it is a crime what he’s done to it. If he wasn’t “Robert Plant” this song would never make it to radio on its merits.
Please compare it to the original by The Youngbloods off the Elephant Mountain album. This is such a great song, full of passion and energy.
Covers like Plant’s should be a criminal offense.
Anyone see the article/picture of Robert Plant in the latest issue of Details magazine?
Holy crap! What is he, 78 now? :eek:
wow that is pretty extreme, but ok…
here is another review that someone sent me:
I love “Dreamland.” It’s the sort of layered album that reveals more
with
each listen, inviting a deeper and deeper admiration with each press of
the
‘play’ button. It is dreamlike and atmospheric, especially from the
middle
part of the record on, when the album really starts to impress.It has
more color and dimension (and better production) than “Walking Into
Clarksdale” – this is great headphone music. And, to his credit, Plant
hasn’t made a “classic rawk” record. Both his guitarists are anything
but
regular classic-rock guitar players. Justin Adams sounds like he hangs
about
Mali blues players and Porl Thompson is an avante garde stylist more
interested in feedback tonalities than doing Eddie Van Halen
“didlee-didlee-didlee” stuff on the fretboard. Plant is really trying
to stretch himself vocally, trying unusual phrasing
and timing rather than singing in a straight ahead, predictable style.
Unlike his live shows, he doesn’t go for the high notes too often but
there
are a few good wails on the album. But what really counts is here in
spades:
beautiful, emotive, impassioned singing. The album’s opener, “Funny In
My Mind (I’m fixin’ to die)” it has to be
said, is not the most inviting of tracks to start an album with. This
sounds
like a distant cousin, twice-removed, of “Most High.” This isn’t as
good as
that Plant/Page tune, but, like that track, it grows on you. This has
some
psychedelic elements, exotic percussion and the type of experimental
guitar
playing from Porl Thompson that makes you wonder whether Radiohead’s
Jonny
Greenwood dropped into the studio. Next up is “Morning Dew,” the first
UK single, which is radically different
from the live versions. It’s slower, more downbeat, and the awesome
guitar
refrain is only used once here in the middle - beautiful stuff. I like
this
version a lot, but I’m also half sad that live version with the
repeated
guitar riff was replicated on the album. You’ll be caught off-guard by
the album’s centerpiece, “Song to the Siren.”
With a string section providing seemingly ancient Arabic-tinged swirls,
and
BJ Cole adding some lovely pedal steel guitar, this piece has an
intimate
grandeur. I also adore the spookily ethereal track "Win My Train Fare
Home (If I Ever
Get Lucky), long a favorite since I saw Plant and SS play Boston last
year.
The album version doesn’t disappoint. It has a dark voodoo running
through
it, and lyrically and musically, it evokes both the Southern Bayou of
the
Mississippi and darkest Africa. There are otherworldly guitar lines
along
with occasional ripples of Doors-like keyboards and what sounds like a
didgeridoo. Hypnotic. If “Win My Train Fare Home” has a vein of voodoo
in it, then “Hey Joe” is
laced with black magic. Dark stuff, this. It also retains the Middle
Eastern
vibe and volcanic dynamics of the live version. At first the speeded up
Hendrix riff didn’t work for me, but now I’m getting into it. I still
think
that it would work better and more powerfully if it were played slower
like
Hendrix’s riff. Plant also unleashes his voice a bit here. “Darkness,
Darkness” is awesome. A great, emotional vocal. I also like the Indian
percussion and Spanish flamenco combination which Plant uses for his
interpretation of Dylan’s “One More Cup of Coffee” (I’m unfamiliar with
the
original). Not sure if I like the way that Robert twists his vocal into
odd
contortions during the verses to express a sense of tired resignation.
A
good chorus compensates. As for the new stuff: “Last Time I Saw Her” is
reminiscent of the “Manic
Nirvana” album in some ways. Some lovely chiming guitar in it. “Red
Dress,”
is good but probably the most disposable track on the album (but this
is
still much, much better than Walking Into Clarksdale’s weak track,
“Burning
Up.”) It has heavy slide guitar, upright bass, Plant on Harmonica and
great
backing vocals by Plant at the end. The final new song, “Dirt In the
Hole”
is a dynamite album closer.
As for the album’s highlight, I think it may just be “Skip’s Song.”
Utterly,
deliriously fantastic. This perfect summer song, a cover of an old Moby
Grape tune, is a welcome break from the album’s sustained mood of
melancholy. Cracking chorus with the same dynamic as “What Is and What
Should Never Be.” Someone commented that Cameron Crowe would have
written a
whole scene in “Almost Famous” just to be able to include this song,
too
right!
Finally, Robert’s getting very good reviews for “Dreamland,” the latest
thumbs up coming from Mojo and Q. In their 4 star write up, Q wrote:
“Not
many fiftysomething rockers would namecheck THE FLAMING LIPS on their
album
sleeve. However, Robert Plant has always kept his finger on the pulse,
championing the likes of Cocteau Twins and PJ Harvey over the years.
While
the songs here are mostly chosen from Plant’s '60s youth, a crack band
containing various Cure, Portishead and Sinead O’Connor sidemen makes
for a
surprisingly modern sound. On Moby Grape’s Skips Song, he sounds as
vulnerable as the song’s acid-crazed author, Skip Spence. Oddly,
Plant’s
ghostly take on Tim Buckley’s Song To the Sire calls to mind Jeff
Buckley
rather than his dad. But, then again, Plant himself was a significant
influence on Buckley junior. It all amounts to an astonishing
reassertion of
relevance for Plant.”
Stephen Humphries