# Robert Plant new album - Dreamland !! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2002, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-plant-new-album-dreamland/119354 "2002-07-17T05:39:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@chief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chief)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-plant-new-album-dreamland/119354/1 "2002-07-17T05:39:36Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Fibonacci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Fibonacci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibonacci)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-plant-new-album-dreamland/119354/2 "2002-07-17T13:37:32Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![LolaCocaCola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7cd45c/32.png) [@LolaCocaCola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LolaCocaCola)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-plant-new-album-dreamland/119354/3 "2002-07-17T14:05:28Z")
Anyone see the article/picture of Robert Plant in the latest issue of _Details_ magazine? Holy crap! What is he, 78 now? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![chief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@chief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chief)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-plant-new-album-dreamland/119354/4 "2002-07-17T17:26:38Z")
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