Do
you remember your old School reports?
Believe it or not some of the rock 'n'
roll animals, who read these snippets
of purported wisdom in the hallowed pages
of Pattya's leading weekly tome, are actually
young enough to still get school reports.
(When are we going to get a review of'
Linkin Park'?) However, I must admit there
are more who actually write the reports,
than receive them. Anyway, Mott always
used to get his saying things like ‘Could
do better, if only he paid more attention‘
or ’Underachieves due to lack of
concentration’, or the one I always
dreaded, the one word review ‘Lazy’.
Still. it was better than the report that
said ‘Tries very hard, but does
not make much progress’.
Robert Plant's 'Dreamland' (2002) album
would receive one of the former reports,
as this collection of songs seems to have
no focal point, but rather feels like
thrown together. I find Mr. Robert (Percy
to his friends, for obvious reasons) Plant
rather caught between two stools. He had
just come off the back of a couple of
albums and a worldwide tour with old running
mate Jimmy Page, which had been the biggest
thing in the rock 'n' roll world that
year. Enjoying the habit of touring, Jimmy
Page had gathered up ‘The Black
Crowes‘ and continued touring, leaving
Robert Plant behind to contemplate his
future. After a brief hiatus he put a
new band together and came out of the
recording studio with this collection
of songs. Unfortunately for everybody
the high expectations were soon shattered.
What you get is an album of some covers
(a la David Bowie with 'Pin Ups' and Brian
Ferry with 'Those Foolish Things' in the
seventies) and some originals. Well, it's
a bit more difficult than that. To be
more precise there are definitely six
covers and two originals with the originals
being average songs. Nothing awful, but
certainly nothing to make you gasp as
in the days of Led Zeppelin. Two of the
songs have writing credits for the band,
but one of them, opening song 'Funny in
My Mind', has the chorus of ‘The
Country Joe and the Fish’ song 'I'm
Fixin to Die'.
'Win My Train Fare Home' actually credits
all the band with songwriting as well
as acknowledging elements of Arthur 'Big
Boy' Brown for ‘If I Ever Get Lucky’
and ‘That's Alright Mama’,
Robert Johnson for ’Milk Cow's Calf
Blues’, and John Lee Hooker for
‘Crawlin' King Snake’. Now
that is a lot of Elements to get into
six minutes of an original song.
The trouble with the six covers is that
although they are not bad, it would be
an achievement indeed to completely ruin
songs of this caliber. All of these songs
have been played better by both the original
artists and other musicians, who have
already given definitive versions. 'Morning
Dew' by Tim Rose has been turned into
a staple of Nazareth's live act and recorded
on their debut album; 'One More Cup Of
Coffee’ by Bob Dylan has been given
a wonderful new spin by ‘Nutz’
on their third album ‘Hard Nutz’;
'Song to the Siren' by Tim Buckley was
magnificently covered live by his own
son Jeff Buckley as well as countless
other artists; and 'Darkness Darkness’
by Jesse Colin Young of the Youngbloods
has been set in the stone of rock by ‘Mott
the Hoople’ on their ‘Brain
Capers’ album. As for 'Hey Joe'
by William Roberts, well, you just cannot
play that song without being compared
to Jimi Hendrix' first single and coming
off second best. Final song on the album
is Alexander Lee Spence's 'Skip's Song',
originally recorded by his band ‘Moby
Grape’. Now this is a song that
just shouldn’t be messed with. And
mess with it is what Robert Plant and
his band of cohorts do. It leaves a very
bad ‘taste’ in your ears,
encompassing these songs.
It's not all bad, the band is competent
throughout. Porl Thompson (ex ‘the
Cure’) should be singled out for
some fine axe work. Coming in to work
with Robert Plant after Jimmy Page is
always going to be a thankless task (or
Robert Plant's ex-solo guitarist Robbie
Blunt for that matter).But Porl pulls
it off adequately while not exactly setting
the world on fire with his version of
reverb and fuzz tone.
Robert Plant himself whines and groans
his way through every song. This method
of Ooh's and Ahh's was satisfactory, even
groundbreaking in its quieter moments
with Led Zeppelin, except then they were
able to follow that up with a musical
one-two to your jaw and stomach. Here
there is no light, no shade - perhaps
a few belting rockers might of shaken
off the lethargy…. But certainly
as a whole this album is difficult to
listen to twice.
Oh well, back to school reports. I think
we will just mark this one ‘disappointing'.
Pawed by Mott The Dog
Remastered by Ella Crew
E-mail: review@mott-the-dog.com
