Dreamland

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Dreamland is Robert Plant's first solo album--in name at least--for nigh on a decade. Plant's latest backing band--who toil under the slightly naff cabaret-circuit moniker of Strange Sensation--have a lithe and serpentine approach to fusing American revivalist folk with the blues and modernist alt-rock (Plant even namechecks the Flaming Lips as an influence)--all this in spite of the fact that they are drawn from such non-Kerrang!-subscribing musicians as Porl Thompson (The Cure), Justin Adams (Jah Wobble), Clive Deamer (Portishead) and John Baggott (Portishead, Massive Attack). Occasionally, this spontaneity finds them following their investigative noses down a blind alley--"Hey Joe", for all its free-form psychedelia, has "jam session" written all over it--but these trifling shortcomings are eclipsed by the hauntingly meditative "Morning Dew" (Bonnie Dobson's flicker of light in the darkness of 1960's nuclear war neurosis) and terrifically reinterpretative versions of familiar standards and neglected jewels, particularly Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" (with warm Arabian strings) and an Anglicised-roots-via-heavy-rock shuffle through Bukka White's "Fixin' To Die". Often, covers albums are rot-stopping attempts to stall for time issued by dried-up "has-beens" but Dreamland exudes devil-may-care, barrier-smashing self-belief. --Kevin Maidment