Another very solid outing by Plant, somewhat in the same vein as his fantastic collaboration with Alison Krauss of a couple years back, Raising Sand. On Band of Joy, he has a dream pair of collaborators in Buddy Miller on guitar (and production) and the glorious Patty Griffin singing backup, and a great roster of songs to do over (nearly all covers, and mostly obscure ones), and it all works very nicely.
The album starts brightly, with the folksy country-rock of "Angel Dance" (Los Lobos) followed by a Gram and Emmylou-esque Richard Thompson number, "House of Cards" (one of my favourites), the only original Plant-Miller composition on the record (a loose, melodic bluegrass number, "Central Two O Nine") and then a wonderfully ethereal Low cover ("Silver Rider"), which, all murmured lyrics and exhalations and spiralling, layered guitars, sounds like nothing so much as Death in Vegas covering Galaxie 500. The rest of it's as diverse as that opening four-song run, though not as consistently strong, covering country ballads ("The Only Sound That Matters"), psychedelic-edged groovers ("Monkey"), bright good-times tunes ("Harm's Swift Way" - oddly reminiscent of the Arcade Fire's "City With No Children In It") and experimental rave-ups ("Even This Shall Pass Away"). It's all very tasteful, but in a good way - a definite graceful ageing, and a real success.
