Mighty Rearanger dissected...

["JR Sroufe" <jrsrouf@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Having had Plant's 'Mighty Rearranger' disc now for a couple of days, 
I decided to give it a listen this evening and make a note or two as 
I check it out.

Track 1.) 'Another Tribe' Starts with a drum intro. I like the tempo. 
When the vocals start that's when the problems begin. Robert's vocals 
are *way* too hot in the mix, virtually burying the rest of the music 
with inane lyrics. Very "Kashmir-ry" string arrangement in this one. 
Don't really like this tune much at all. Bad choice on an opening 
track if you ask me. Now I'm dreading the rest of this...

Track 2.) 'Shine It All Around' More over the top vocal treatment 
here. This is the one they released as a single? The engineer needs 
to have his fingers broken for this mix. I hope the rest of the disc 
isn't mixed like this. I like the drum sound somewhat, probably 
because it's very Bonhamesqe. The musicianship is pretty decent but 
not outstanding so far. You can really tell that this is a solo album 
by someone who is a "lead singer". Too much vocal can be a bad thing.

Track 3.) 'Freedom Fries' Oh shit...this one has no promise 
whatsoever. The thing never finds a real groove until 45 seconds into 
the song. Even then it goes somewhere that borders on absolute noise. 
We get a good dose of Robert doing the "aaaaaaaahhhh" wails. Too bad 
he can't really pull it off anymore. These lyrics! Yaargh! Feh!

Track 4.) 'Tin Pan Valley' Oooooo Pink Floyd meets The Doors on the 
intro! The vocals come in and kill it. Dead. More lyrical nonsense. 
Jesus Christ, Plant sounds like he's on a resipirator until he flips 
out and starts hollerin' and wallerin' on the bridge. Sounds like the 
adrenaline shot worked...wait....it's back to the zombie vocal. Gak! 
More wig-out, no-groove bridge stuff! Oooooo-kay that sucked.

Track 5.) 'All The King's Horses' Folkie sounding guitar intro. 
Vocals way too hot in the mix again. If this is an attempt to justify 
the previous track's lack of organization, it's not working. This is 
the best vocal attempt so far (in a melodic sense). Still it seems a 
bit out of Plant's current range and it sounds like he's trying too 
hard. Nice touch with the E-bow on the guitar during the refrain. 
Again though, Robert's vocal mix tears down the foundation of the 
sound.

Track 6.) 'The Enchanter' Delta bluesey sounding guitar with that 
damned ultra-clean, way-loud vocal mix. Sounds like he's trying to 
set up a mood piece, but it comes off a bit trite by the time the 
chorus comes around. A little guitar distortion is good but too much 
makes it sound amateurish. Slide solo sounds like it slid off Jimmy's 
'nads. At least send him 5 bucks gratuity.
The keyboard solo at the end *has* to be from Richard Wright and Ray 
Manzarek's love-child.

Track 7.) 'Takamba' Okay, I'm hoping for a miracle at this point - 
here goes.
What the hell? Did somebody leave a mic on in the tuning room? Oh 
wait, here comes the music (?). Oh crap, more manic incoherence with 
a weird vocal track. Props to the band for willing to explore odd 
time signatures, but without strong songwriting it goes nowhere. 
That's exactly where this tracks winds up. Nowhere.
For somebody who doesn't want to revisit any Zeppelin past, that 
vocal part at the end of this song sure sounds a hell of a lot like 
the "freak-out" part of 'Whole Lotta Love'.
Nice try Robert, but that didn't save the song.

Track 8.) 'Dancing In Heaven' Very "Byrdsey", with that jangle guitar 
sound. The guitar player is obviously very much a Page fan with a lot 
of his influence on this track. Dammit, the vocals just drags this 
thing to the bottom of the loch, though. Lyrical dreck.

Track 9.) 'Somebody Knocking' Okay where is this going? Delta blues 
meets Arabic music? Who's playing on this? Blind Lemon Sahib? The 
vocal treatment on this one has Robert sound like he's on a 
transistor radio in the men's room at Grand Central Station. 
Unfortunately the guy farting two stalls down has better tone.

Track 10.) 'Let The Four Winds Blow' Damn, this thing sounds like 
'Indian Reservation' by Paul Revere and the Raiders! The guitar 
follows the vocal line note for note for the first half of the song, 
which gets annoying after a while. At least the mix is a little 
better on this one. Plant's still way out front, but in this case it 
works somewhat. Mix-wise that is. Out of what I've heard so far, this 
would be the only track that'll get a repeat out of me for a while.

Track 11.) 'Mighty Rearranger' Title track for the disc. Why does 
this remind me of a Jethro Tull song? the vocals just sound so 
"detached" (for lack of a better word) that it's really difficult to 
find a real connection with the music. Is it the mix? The vocal 
performance itself? I don't know, but it's unpalatable to my ears. 
Robert should really give up the "aahhhh-ah" thing for good. The end 
of the song is full of that shit and it kills it as well.

Track 12.) 'Brother Ray' From the first notes it sounds like Robert 
has "Mightily Rearranged" 'Boogie With Stu'. One minute and eleven 
seconds of nothing. The 'Seinfeld' of the disc. A song about nothing.

Well, that wraps up what I consider the biggest waste of my time in 
months (unless you wanna count me trying to argue with Von a while 
back). 'Mighty Rearranger' definitely has Robert Plant's stamp on it. 
Different strokes for different folks, people, but this disc is gonna 
go to the rack and probably stay there for a long, long time.

Eh well,
JR