MIGHTY REARRANGER

Composers: Robert Plant; John Baggot; Skin Tyson; Clive Deamer; Justin Adams . Robert Plant & the Strange Sensation/Robert Plant: Skin Tyson (acoustic guitar); Robert Plant (harmonica); Justin Adams (bass instrument); Billy Fuller (double bass); Clive Deamer (bendir); John Baggot (electronics). Audio Remasterers: Daniel Hersch; Bill Inglot; Raj Das. Against all odds, Robert Plant, the ultimate '70s rock god, has consistently managed to remain artistically relevant throughout the decades of his post-Led Zeppelin career. In the 1980s he updated his sound to incorporate an almost new-wave sensibility on his solo albums, as well as turning the clock all the way back to the '50s with jump-blues band the Honeydrippers--hardly the stuff of "Kashmir." While there are some echoes of Zep on MIGHTY REARRANGER (Bonhamesque whomping drums, Middle Eastern influences, transmogrified blues riffs), Plant isn't resting on his laurels here. The synth-filled "Tin Pan Valley" bears more of a relation to trip-hop than to blues-rock; "Brother Ray" is a quirky, lo-fi piano boogie; and for much of the album Plant veers toward the lower, more intimate end of his vocal range, largely eschewing the high-pitched wail that made him a superstar in bygone stadium-rock days. Plant is joined here by the musicians who helped make his covers album DREAMLAND such a worthy project, and it sounds like they managed to gel into a full-fledged band, giving their leader a solid framework to work his often-hypnotic magic.