I’d prefer it if Led Zeppelin’s upcoming gig didn’t evolve into a full-scale reunion. My worry is that a return to rock’n’roll superstardom would do irreparable damage to Robert Plant’s solo career, which is turning into the most interesting home stretch since Johnny Cash’s remarkable resurgence. How many former rock gods would countenance an album of duets with a bluegrass artist? Not many. But here’s Plant, blending perfectly with Alison Krauss, willingly taming his wilder side in the service of a restrained but resonant sound, produced by the O Brother, Where Art Thou? helmsman, T Bone Burnett. The results are simply stunning. Songs include Tom Waits’s Trampled Rose, Gene Clark’s Polly Come Home and the Everly Brothers’ Gone Gone Gone, but best of all is a transcendent new version of the Page/Plant track Please Read the Letter. Plant has sung a lot louder, but he has never sung better.

Decca 475 9382 9

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