Robert Plant and The Sensational Space Shifters, Roundhouse - music review

Plant goes his own way, acknowledging his past while refusing to be trapped by it
Pushing boundaries: Robert Plant (Pic: Startraks Photo/REX)
Startraks Photo/REX
John Aizlewood17 November 2014

Hours after Robert Plant described reports of a £500 million offer to re-form Led Zeppelin as “fabricated”, he played a venue he first graced 46 years ago last Sunday. “It feels like home,” he chuckled, faux sincerely. “If you believe that, you’ll believe anything”. As he has since the original Zeppelin stopped in 1980, Plant goes his own way, acknowledging his past while refusing to be trapped by it.

As if Plant’s three-decade solo career had never existed, he ignored it except for his current effort Lullaby and ... the Ceaseless Road, adding only twisted blues covers (Howlin’ Wolf’s Spoonful sounded ripe for a Michael Flatley interpretation) and the occasional dip into Zeppelin.

Plant’s voice may not be the breast-beater of yore but it’s more subtle, while the six tightly drilled Sensational Space Shifters featured Cast’s Liam Tyson in the Jimmy Page role, and brought new zip to Zeppelin’s Going to California and the still-priapic Whole Lotta Love.

With its almost Celtic bent and swathes of synthesised beats, Plant’s new music looked forwards and backwards simultaneously, especially on Rainbow and the Appalachian traditional, Little Maggie. At 66, Robert Plant is still pushing boundaries.

Latest music reviews

1/168

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in