Rating: ***
I have to admit, I'm kinda a sucker for a good cover project. I've seen plenty attack Led Zeppelin over the years to varying degrees of success.
So you can't really blame me that I went into "Pompeii Sessions" by In the Light of Led Zeppelin with a degree of skepticism. I mean, I've been down this road before. Will they put a new twist on it? Will they keep it traditional? Will it just be what we've heard before? Why would I throw this on instead of just listening to the original masters themselves?
There's really only one way to find out. So I'm gonna give it a hearty listen.
If you have Spotify, you can join me by clicking here.
Watch the In The Light "Rockumentary" on YouTube here:
We get the Zeppelin cover party started with "Dancing Days" and honestly, nobody is ever gonna be able to cover this better than the Stone Temple Pilots did back in 1995. That said, this version isn't bad. Vocalist, Scott Board does a pretty faithful Robert Plant-impression, while still keeping his own style prevalent. Not bad. "Ramble On" is next and it's underwhelming. They play it pretty close to the original and I think that was a mistake. It's such a great tune to begin with that without taking a new twist on it, it just makes you long for the Zeppelin version. Track three is "Battle of Evermore". This one works better. The arrangement is a little different, while still keeping the spirit of the original. I'm into this one a lot. "The Rain Song" is another keeper. Really well-played and sung. This might be my favorite cover of this. Next up is "Friends" which was never my favorite Zeppelin track to begin with and the cover kinda rubs me the same. As far as covering a song I didn't really dig anyways, they did a fine job. "Four Sticks" is done well, but as we get six tracks in, I'm beginning to tire of hearing Zeppelin covers. This is probably a problem that they are gonna run into. "Kashmir" is just as epic as the original and I have to commend them on how well they play it.
All in all, this is a great effort. I found most of the tracks quite enjoyable, and even the ones that I didn't love, they played well. Here's the issue: It's a cover album of songs that we've heard covered a million times. This wheel has been reinvented so many times in so many ways, that it's almost impossible to make it sound fresh at this point. To their credit, they got close.