Robert Plant Nine Lives

At first, Fate of Nations seems so light and airy that it slips away through the layers of acoustic guitars, violins, and keyboards. Upon further listenings, more textures appear, and the album gains a calm sense of tension and reflectivenes…

Manic Nirvana essentially continued the revitalized hard rock crunch of Now & Zen. Unlike the previous record, Manic Nirvana played it a little closer to the vest, concentrating on a set of lean, driving riff-rockers instead of ponderous Led Zeppelin pomp…

After years of trying to separate himself from his legendary status as Led Zeppelin's frontman, Robert Plant finally reconciles with his past on Now & Zen. He borrows a few Zeppelin riffs, and even enlists Jimmy Page to play guitar on his hit "Tall Cool One." This album is also notable in that it marks his first collaboration with keyboardist Phil Johnstone, who would continue to play and write with Plant on subsequent albums…

On Mighty Rearranger, the core of the band Robert Plant showcased on 2002's Dreamland – and named the Strange Sensation – is a full-blown expanded lineup that shares the bill with him. Guitarists Justin Adams and Skin Tyson, drummer Clive Deamer, keyboardist John Baggot, and bassist Billy Fuller help Plant give listeners his most musically satisfying and diverse recording since, well, Led Zeppelin's Physical Grafitti…

A telling thing about Robert Plant at his peak is how he would sneak on-stage with Rockpile and sing Elvis songs, or how Swan Song signed Dave Edmunds when his retro-rock was about the furthest thing from the monolithic Zeppelin of Physical Graffiti. Plant always harbored deep, abiding love for early rock & roll, a fact that was often obscured by his restlessness, too, a side that he indulged on his first two post-Zep solo albums – glistening, modern albums with a heavier debt to Robert Fripp than Little Richard. Two albums in, he switched tactics for the EP detour The Honeydrippers, Vol. 1, an unabashedly retro-rock project that hauled out five golden oldies from the pre-Beatles era and served them up authentically, or at least as authentic nostalgia…