A triumphant Mr Plant, devoid of his Mr Page, fairly hot on the heels of his successes with T-Bone Burnett, the O2 Led Zep gigs and the elegant crooning with rootsy country goddess, Alison Krauss, is tripping back in time with his latest oeuvre. Band Of Joy was the sainted Bob’s first, proper band, as a West Midlands teenager, desperate to understand his predilection for the blues. He had already bumped into John Bonham, the drummer at the time in The Crawling King Snakes. Together they went on to form Band Of Joy but they were still a couple of years away from the fame of Led Zeppelin.

Robert Anthony Plant CBE needs hardly any introduction. He is a flowing locked, rock god. Renowned for his powerful wailing and psychedelic blues-influenced rock, the edges may be wrinkled with his passing years, having recently celebrated his 62nd birthday, and the blouses may have disappeared for a more mature buttoned-up sobriety, but there is no denying the potency, vibrancy and stunning competence of his latest album, which owes as much to his roots as to his recent fascination with Americana, extolled through the 2009 Grammy award-winning ‘Raising Sand’ album.

This latest 12-track record witnesses a revitalised, relaxed and contented Plant. Not yet ready to deliver his retirement message, it is packed with scuzzy guitars and strings, rattling washboards and hints at the psychedelia
that coursed through his early career. Bob is on the money. His voice has never sounded better and, as seldom referenced as it is, his solo collaboration with Phil Collins that produced ’Big Log’ was the last time that I could perceive a certain delightful freedom in his musical stylings. 

Yet, here is a work of gargantuan stature. Quietly whispered in parts. Strident in others. The opening gambit, also released as a single and placed immediately on BBC Radio 2’s play-list, ‘Angel Dance’ has a ‘Kashmir’ reminiscence for three minutes and fifty seconds of whirling strings, incessant bass-line and recurrent drum-beats. It is of platinum-grade quality, supported by his new backing band of Nashville strummers and vocalists, clearly as keen as Bob to stretch their capabilities and make previous rarities sound fresh, vital and warranted for the future.

Joining him in this remarkably celebratory album are female vocalist Patty Griffin, singer-guitarist Buddy Miller, multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott, bass playing Byron House and percussionist Marco Giovino. Yet, all of Plant’s influences, which include the inimitable Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, let alone the other leading lights over which he has held an influence, would marvel at the magnificence of ‘Band Of Joy’.

‘House Of Cards’ follows the original intentions of its English author, Richard Thompson, in the folksy-rock musings and delicious harmonies of the band, while ‘Central Two-O-Nine’ goes all blue-grassy and delves into rockabilly brilliance. It does not matter that very little of this album is truly new, Robert Plant’s freshly-discovered excellence and a more laid-back style is no less statuesque than his former chest-out strutting and ‘plantations’ of the Led Zeppelin era. It is different and none the worse for that and demonstrates that from the gentle warbling of ‘Silver Rider’ to the distorted hysteria of Towne’s Van Zandt’s ‘Harm’s Swift Way’, Mr Robert Plant is very much in charge of his destiny just do not ask about reforming Led Zep. In the current scheme of things, Bob may have reached his centenary for that to happen.