(2021) Greta Van Fleet - The Battle at Garden's Gate


Review:
The Battle at Garden’s Gate is the kind of album title that accurately reflects the contents within. Greta Van Fleet isn’t much concerned with the modern world, preferring to live in a fantasy of their own creation, one cobbled together with ideas learned from old albums from Led Zeppelin, Rush, and Styx. All these elements were in place on their 2018 debut Anthem of the Peaceful Army, but they’re amplified on The Battle at Garden’s Gate, an album that makes everything that worked the first time bigger and louder, or just more. The group’s unexpected success meant they had the power to enlist an A-list producer, so they brought Greg Kurstin – a Grammy winner for his work with Adele and Beck who also helmed records by Paul McCartney and Foo Fighters into the studio to help shape their fanciful notions and heavy riffs. Kurstin manages to conjure the expansive vistas that were so common in 1974, letting the band puff up their pomp and ramble on. As texture is Greta Van Fleet’s main gift, this is for the best: the extra length gives the impression that the group is in control of their fantasy. This spell works best when guitarist Jake Kiszka, bassist Sam Kiszka, and drummer Danny Wagner labor to conjure the ghost of Houses of the Holy, paying rapt attention to the slight shifts in light and shade. The spell is punctured whenever Josh Kiszka stumbles in to caterwaul his tales of barbarians and nations. More Geddy Lee than Robert Plant, Josh Kiszka commands attention then alienates; his wail is the weak link in a group who is getting better at their period-accurate cosplay.





Tracklist:
01. Heat Above (5:41)
02. My Way, Soon (4:15)
03. Broken Bells (5:51)
04. Built By Nations (3:59)
05. Age Of Machine (6:54)
06. Tears Of Rain (3:50)
07. Stardust Chords (4:57)
08. Light My Love (4:31)
09. Caravel (4:56)
10. The Barbarians (5:21)
11. Trip The Light Fantastic (4:33)
12. The Weight Of Dreams (8:51)
13. Heat Above (Live Version) (5:48 )
14. Stardust Chords (Live Version) (5:22)


Media Report:
Genre: rock
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits