From The Fires - Greta Van Fleet
Track List:
Safari Song
Edge Of Darkness
Flower Power
A Change Is Gonna Come
Highway Tune
Meet On The Ledge
Talk On The Street
Black Smoke Rising
Last Night…
I was privileged to go see a local band called Jazz is Led. They rework Zeppelin songs into songs for a jazz quartet and they are phenomenal. It made me want to listen to some Zeppelin but then I thought why not go with what I have heard is basically a Zeppelin cover band. Enter Greta Van Fleet. Joking aside I think I’ve heard some of Highway Tune from this album before and it is clearly Zeppelin inspired.
Safari Song
It sounds like a Zeppelin tune from the start. I wouldn’t consider that a band thing. Yes it’s very Zeppelin inspired but it’s a good song, nothing overtly original, in fact heavily derivative, however a lot of good music is heavily derivative. I enjoyed this one. The song seems to be about a relationship.
Edge Of Darkness
This one sounds much less inspired by Zeppelin, there is still an influence but it sounds more original than the previous song. The guitar solo is pretty good. The lyrics seem to take inspiration from late 60’s early 70’s hippy culture.
Flower Power
Oh hippy culture…I will not mention it again but this one also sounds like Zeppelin, assume I think these songs sound Zeppelin inspired unless I state otherwise. The singer doesn’t have the same strength in the upper register as Plant (did/does?). I can best describe this song as a Zeppelin-ish tribute to a song the Grateful Dead could have written.
A Change Is Gonna Come
Bluesy and raw. It’s also a Sam Cooke cover. I find that really interesting, Greta Van Fleet literally pulled a Led Zeppelin and took a song that was 40 years old by an artist that would be considered obscure to modern youth and recreated it as hard rock.
Highway Tune
A good rock song about loving.
Meet On The Ledge
I also hear a lot of Rush influence in this. I found this song incredibly pleasant to listen to. I think that the lyrics are describing the commitment that the band has made together to pursue a musical career and the risk that accompanies it.
Talk On The Street
I hear more Rush than Zeppelin in this one. The lyrics seem to describe a society that is trying to learn from mistakes from the past, it doesn’t appear that they are fully successful in this.
Black Smoke Rising
So this one tells the story of a society that is in crisis and how the society deals with this. Neat Pink Floyd inspired section for the bridge.
Incredibly derivative
I can’t imagine this album gets made without some strong love for classic rock. I feel like this is what you would get if you had taken all the music from the classic rock radio station from my youth and had AI make songs inspired by it. That being said, this was really good. I think I will check out the rest of the catalog. I’ve heard people say that we don’t get good modern rock music. I think this is a great example of good modern rock music that those same people would like if they give it a chance. And really we don’t get a lot of modern rock that is marketed well so any band like this having success is great in my opinion.
