Skip to main content
Music Radar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
  • Guitars
  • Amps
  • Pedals
  • Drums
  • Synths
  • Software
  • Pianos
  • Controllers
  • Recording
  • Buyer’s guides
  • Live
  • DJ
  • Advice
  • Acoustic
  • Bass
  • About us
  • More
    • Reviews
Magazines
  • Computer Music
  • Electronic Musician
  • Future Music
  • Keyboard Magazine
  • Guitarist
  • Guitar Techniques
  • Total Guitar
  • Bass Player
More
  • How to make an AI cover song
  • 84000+ free music samples
  • Foo Fighters' new drummer
  • Ken Scott on recording The Beatles
  • First EVH Jump synth recording

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

  1. Home
  2. News

Robert Plant: Band Of Joy review track-by-track

By Terry Staunton
published 14 September 2010

Is Plant's new album for 2010 Raising Sand II?

Robert Plant: Band Of Joy album review track-by-track

Robert Plant: Band Of Joy album review track-by-track

As word filtered through that Robert Plant’s sessions with Alison Krauss for the follow-up to 2007’s multi-million seller Raising Sand ended abruptly, a question mark hung over what the erstwhile Led Zeppelin frontman would do next. As it transpires, his new album Band Of Joy is still rich with the atmospheric Americana of its predecessor, but with a few notable tweaks.

The chemistry might not have been right for a seconding outing with Krauss, but Patty Griffin steps into the female vocal foil shoes with style, although her contributions are restricted largely to back-up harmonies, as opposed to being a full-on duet partner. However, the key collaborator here is Buddy Miller, who takes over from T Bone Burnett as producer, and is the lynchpin of the studio sessioneers (also named Band Of Joy, after one of Plant’s earliest groups).

Recorded at Woodland, the Nashville studio now owned by Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, and with a heritage that made it a favourite among veteran country stars such as Chet Atkins and Glen Campbell, the location would appear to have been integral to Plant soaking up over a century of American music. Plant seems to have set out to deliver an evocative history lesson in the form of some mesmerising tunes whose impact is heightened with each play.

First up: track one, Angel Dance

Page 1 of 14
Page 1 of 14
Angel Dance
Plant's new guitarist Buddy Miller
(Image credit: Erika Goldring/Retna Ltd./Corbis)

Angel Dance

Plant’s take on the Los Lobos song reinvents it as an almost eastern mystical dirge, the singer imparting the near nursery rhyme optimism of the lyric over a swirling backdrop created by Miller’s echo-laden guitar riff (shades of Bo Diddley) and some fine mandolin from Darrell Scott and Marco Giovino’s military tattoo-style pounding percussion.

Page 2 of 14
Page 2 of 14
House Of Cards
Patty Griffin's first appearance - here she is at Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Colarado, 2009
(Image credit: Erika Goldring/Retna Ltd./Corbis)

House Of Cards

In pre-release interviews, Plant has continually referred to English folk figureheads Fairport Convention’s own musical excursions into the American heartland.

Here, he overhauls a track written by Fairport’s Richard Thompson in the late '70s - a stuttering metaphor-filled story underpinned by Byron House’s fluid bass. The vocals (Griffin making her first appearance) play a call-and-response game with Miller’s guitar twang and more intricate mandolin from Scott.

Page 3 of 14
Page 3 of 14
Central Two-O-Nine
Robert Plant live in Bucharest, 2007
(Image credit: MIHAI BARBU/X01691/Reuters/Corbis)

Central Two-O-Nine

The album’s only original track, co-written by Plant and Miller, is nonetheless seeped in bygone hues, combining a hoedown banjo with a gritty blues rhythm that recalls the acoustic blues of Robert Johnson.

Realistically, it could have been lifted from Led Zeppelin III, but its simplistic lyric of a man waiting for his lover’s train express a sentiment as old as the railway itself.

Page 4 of 14
Page 4 of 14
Silver Rider
Plant's favourites Low playing in downtown Duluth, Minnesota
(Image credit: Joe Cunningham, Creative Commons)

Silver Rider

Slowcore indie band Low have long been among Plant’s favourite younger bands, and he’s opted to cover two tracks from their 2005 album The Great Destroyer.

The first finds a reverbed Miller delicately picking out lines while Plant limits his voice to a near whisper. Griffin’s contribution is arguably the most telling, a ghostly hush that drifts across the speakers to give the song an ethereal atmosphere.

Page 5 of 14
Page 5 of 14
You Can't Buy Me Love
Plant live at Somerset House, 2006
(Image credit: Gideon Mendel/Corbis)

You Can't Buy Me Love

A sprightly upbeat soul dancefloor filler in its original '60s incarnation by Barbara Lynne, here it’s delivered as a garage-like fuzzbox classic that could feasibly have been produced by The Yardbirds or, given its title, mid-period Beatles.

Indeed, Miller’s choppy guitar could have been lifted straight off the Fab Four’s She’s A Woman.

Page 6 of 14
Page 6 of 14
Falling In Love Again
Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin performing in Tennessee, 2010
(Image credit: Tim Mosenfelder/Corbis)

Falling In Love Again

Another little-known '60s soul tune, Plant doesn’t veer too far from the Kelly Brothers’ original.

The entire band weigh in on the gospel doo-wop harmonies, while Plant offers a delicately quivering lead that will be familiar to fans of his brief diversion with The Honeydrippers in the early '80s. Instrumentation is kept to a minimum, but Miller’s discreet guitar perfectly complements the voices.

Page 7 of 14
Page 7 of 14
The Only Sound That Matters
Plant live in Paris, 1998
(Image credit: Natacha Connan/Kipa/Corbis)

The Only Sound That Matters

Perhaps the most straight 'country' selection on the album, and originally performed by obscure Nashville treasures Milton Mapes.

It could almost be a shuffling Springsteen ballad, all late-night yearning and valentine similes, Plant’s double-tracked vocal twisting its way through the spaces between Scott’s lap steel and Miller’s subdued acoustic plucking.

Page 8 of 14
Page 8 of 14
Monkey
Bassist Byron House during a "late '70s winter"
(Image credit: http://www.myspace.com/byronhouse)

Monkey

The second cover courtesy of Minnesota’s Low, this is the album’s most spooky track, with Plant and Griffin harmonising on a disturbing story of possession and control.

Miller adds a modicum of wailing feedback to set the tone, but it’s the devil dance created by House’s thrumming bass and Giovino’s understated drums that stays with the listener.

Page 9 of 14
Page 9 of 14
Cindy, I'll Marry You Someday
Darrell Scott at Newport Folk Festival, 2006
(Image credit: Brian Snyder/Reuters/Corbis)

Cindy, I'll Marry You Someday

What started life as a 19th century negro folk song has, down the years, been reinterpreted by such diverse performers as Elvis Presley, Warren Zevon and Nick Cave.

Plant all but returns it to its origins, accompanied in the main part by Scott’s banjo Giovino’s brush drums, with Miller adding an intermittent 21st century sheen on a single string of his electric.

Page 10 of 14
Page 10 of 14
Harm's Swift Way
Townes Van Zandt circa 1994
(Image credit: Christopher Felver/CORBIS)

Harm's Swift Way

Townes Van Zandt is perhaps most revered for the dense and sombre poetry of his country output, but this is among one of his most accessible tunes.

A no-nonsense strummer, albeit with a heartbreak lyric, Miller’s guitar work places it in the radio-friendly canon of, say, The Jayhawks or Ryan Adams, while Griffin relishes playing Emmylou Harris to Plant’s Gram Parsons.

Page 11 of 14
Page 11 of 14
Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down
Plant clapping forebodingly in Rosenberg, 2005
(Image credit: Cookie Rosenberg/Retna Ltd./Corbis)

Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down

A Carolina gospel song that historians believe dates from the 1930s, it has also been attempted in recent times by Uncle Tupelo. Plant’s arrangement is somewhat sparser, his voice full of foreboding while Scott’s banjo plucks a menacing accompaniment.

Again, Miller floats by almost unnoticed in the background with muted echo of a guitar part.

Page 12 of 14
Page 12 of 14
Even This Shall Pass Away
Plant probably not rapping at the MGM Grand, 1998
(Image credit: Ethan Miller/CORBIS)

Even This Shall Pass Away

Wire-brush drums, freeform Hendrix-like guitar and a vocal that’s probably the closest Plant has ever come to rapping.

It’s an intriguing mix, especially on a song that began as a 19th century poem by journalist and anti-slavery campaigner Theodore Tilton. It’s as tribal as it is testimonial, providing a fitting closer to a mercurial collection of songs that surprise at very turn.

Page 13 of 14
Page 13 of 14
Verdict
Plant and Alison Krauss performing at the 2009 Grammy Awards
(Image credit: LUCY NICHOLSON/Reuters/Corbis)

Verdict

Lazy shorthand would have you believe that, despite the absence of Alison Krauss, Band Of Joy is to all intents and purposes Raising Sand, part two. However, while both albums clearly share a template, Plant’s latest is further-reaching in both its investigations of America’s rich musical heritage and its sonic ambition.

It’s the sound of Plant returning to a well-thumbed encyclopaedia but paying more attention to the smallprint footnotes. As tempting as a big bucks Zeppelin reunion might have been (not that he needs the cash), Plant has instead chosen to stretch his creative muscles and look further back in time than the halcyon days of the rock legends who made his name.

Few artists in their early 60s have ever sounded so hungry, so engaged, so enthused by music, and while the jury may still be out on whether Band Of Joy is a better album than Raising Sand, it is certainly no less of a triumph.

Liked this? Now read: Eric Clapton new album review: track-by-track

Connect with MusicRadar: via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube

Get MusicRadar straight to your inbox: Sign up for the free weekly newsletter

Page 14 of 14
Page 14 of 14
Terry Staunton
Social Links Navigation
More about guitars
Foo Fighters: A colorised image of a Foo Fighters press pic reveals the finish of Grohl's new Epiphone

Is Dave Grohl’s new Epiphone DG-335… Gold?

EarthQuaker Devices Disaster Transport Legacy Reissue

EarthQuaker Devices resurrects the OG Disaster Transport, with the cult classic ‘Delay Modulation Machine’ newly improved with expanded features

Latest
Noel Gallagher

Watch Noel Gallagher use a Fender Strat for High Flying Birds’ “blasphemous” cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart

See more latest ►
Most Popular
Learn 7 of the greatest blues guitar licks of all time

By Leigh Fuge2 June 2023

Orange Amps enters the Bluetooth speaker market with the Orange Box

By Jonathan Horsley2 June 2023

A Jazzmaster 12-string?! Squier steals the limelight from Fender with its new Paranormal Series guitars

By Rob Laing1 June 2023

Arturia’s FX Collection 4 lands with an all-new Leslie speaker plugin and emulations of Korg and Lexicon classics

By Ben Rogerson1 June 2023

Propellerhead’s ReBirth is reborn as a hands-on hardware synth, and it’s all thanks to Look Mum No Computer

By Ben Rogerson1 June 2023

Attica Blues: "This album opened doors for other people. We played our part so the Little Simz of the world could come through"

By Roy Spencer1 June 2023

Issue 397 of Future Music is out now

By Future Music1 June 2023

Karma Police: the story behind the Radiohead classic that started life as a tour bus catchphrase

By Michael Leonard31 May 2023

SSL’s UF1 promises to “set a new standard for single fader DAW controllers”

By Ben Rogerson31 May 2023

Pedalboard tour: how Petter Carlsen from the Norwegian duo Pil & Bue gets his juggernaut guitar tones

By Rob Laing31 May 2023

Akai issues a red alert as it launches the MPC One+, but it might not have all the upgrades you were hoping for

By Ben Rogerson31 May 2023

  1. Nirvana In Utero cover
    1
    Steve Albini recalls the secrecy around the Nirvana In Utero sessions: "I had to do everything I could to keep it under wraps to make sure that we didn’t get overrun by fans and the added nonsense"
  2. 2
    Gryffin: "After I discovered deadmau5, Skrillex and Avicii, I immediately downloaded Ableton Live"
  3. 3
    Jon Hopkins spent 4 months perfecting the synth riff for Open Eye Signal on a 1979 Korg MS-20: “So much effort into trying to make something sound effortless”
  4. 4
    Former 10cc keyboard player Duncan Mackay showing his Yamaha and Roland synths to comedian Mike Reid could be the strangest video you'll watch all week
  5. 5
    Is Dave Grohl’s new Epiphone DG-335… Gold?
  1. Orange Box: The iconic British amp brand enters the Bluetooth speaker market
    1
    Orange Amps enters the Bluetooth speaker market with the Orange Box
  2. 2
    Jon Hopkins spent 4 months perfecting the synth riff for Open Eye Signal on a 1979 Korg MS-20: “So much effort into trying to make something sound effortless”
  3. 3
    Former 10cc keyboard player Duncan Mackay showing his Yamaha and Roland synths to comedian Mike Reid could be the strangest video you'll watch all week
  4. 4
    Watch Noel Gallagher use a Fender Strat for High Flying Birds’ “blasphemous” cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart
  5. 5
    New Van Halen documentary takes us back to the early ‘80s to tell the story of how Eddie built 5150 Studios as the band were coming apart

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.