Robert's 'Band of Joy' Best Album Of The Year by UK Daily Mail

[kenog]

The UK Daily Mail has chosen Robert's album as the best album of the year. Hopefully, many more plaudits will follow.

Why Plant is top of the Christmas tree: at 62, Led Zep's singer is our pick of the year's ten best albums

By Adrian Thrills

Last updated at 9:52 AM on 17th December 2010

1ROBERT PLANT: Band Of Joy (Decca)

Robert Plant has spent much of the past three decades trying to live down his golden past as a bare-chested rock god. Only now, though, is he fully convincing the wider world that his talent didn't begin and end with Led Zeppelin, a band which changed the face of rock before splitting up after drummer John Bonham died in 1980.

In a youth-obsessed industry, the 62-year-old Plant's resurgence, fuelled originally by 2007's Grammy-winning Raising Sand, has been remarkable. The singer described this year's Band Of Joy album as 'Haight-­Ashbury meets Led Zeppelin III', the former being the cradle of Californian rock, the latter the record on which Zeppelin blended heavy riffs with folkier influences.

But even that description didn't do justice to a sepia-tinted collection that found a rock legend singing tender ballads such as House Of Cards and Silver Rider with astonishing sensitivity. As with Raising Sand (a duets album with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss), Nashville once more provided plenty of inspiration.

And, while Plant was the focal point, the record was a collective effort, with Krauss's shoes ably filled by Patty Griffin, and guitarist Buddy Miller evoking U2's Joshua Tree with some reverb-heavy riffs.

It was a record, too, that chimed well with the rootsy Americana of a new wave of rock groups like The Black Keys, Fleet Foxes and Band Of Horses.

For fans of: Led Zeppelin III.

[Magic Fills the Air]

In The Sunday Times Robert's album listed as the second best album of the year (I can't remember what was #1).