At 76, Robert Plant has stopped chasing the echoes of Zeppelin’s thunder and instead walks the quiet roads that led him there. Saving Grace finds him shoulder to shoulder with Suzi Dian and a small circle of musicians who sound more like friends around a fire than players in a studio.
Like his previous outings with Alison Krauss and Band of Joy, this record isn’t about invention so much as re-discovery. Plant curates songs from gospel, blues, and old folk traditions — pieces worn smooth by time — and breathes into them a calm, weathered spirit. His voice no longer soars; it hovers, trembles, confides. What used to be power is now presence.
The arrangements are sparse but elegant — banjo, cello, brushed drums, and harmonies that ache just right. Nothing here is forced. It’s a long exhale of a record, tender in its restraint, haunted in its beauty.
Saving Grace isn’t a comeback; it’s a reckoning — the sound of a man grateful to still be singing, still listening, still finding new light in the old songs.