lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar by Robert Plant
Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar is English rock singer Robert Plant's tenth solo album and the first studio one with his backing band The Sensational Space Shifters, although the name of the band is not mentioned in the front cover. It was released on 8 September 2014 on Nonesuch/Warner Bros. Records.
The magic of Robert Plant’s tenth solo album, <i>lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar</i>, is its ability to combine a pastiche of disparate musical fragments with effortless fluency. Coming to life with a richly orchestrated version of “Little Maggie”—a traditional bluegrass tune popularised by The Stanley Brothers—Plant interweaves a scrawl of modal strings, grinding electric guitars and laser-beam synths. And yet, the vocalist and his Sensational Space Shifters (a group that includes versatile guitarist Justin Adams and West African percussionist Juldeh Camara), make the genre-defying collision of musical ideas—old and new, familiar and exotic—seem comfortable and uncomplicated. “Rainbow” opens with a ringing hand drum and buzzing guitar, rising to an etherial chorus of cooing “ooh”s. “Turn It Up” combines a righteously distorted riff and jaunting, syncopated percussion. Even the most straightforward songs, like the reverberant ballad “Somebody There” are sumptuously ornate. The result makes <i>lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar</i> a profound musical endeavour, as brilliant, mystical and difficult to classify as the artist himself.
