{"id":45274,"date":"2018-04-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/from-the-fires-ep\/"},"modified":"2018-04-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-24T00:00:00","slug":"from-the-fires-ep","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/from-the-fires-ep\/","title":{"rendered":"From The Fires (EP)"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Led Zeppelin reunited for a magnificent one-off performance<\/a> at the Ahmet Ertegun memorial concert in 2007, there was tremendous demand for a full reunion tour, which ultimately never happened. The guys in Greta Van Fleet appear to have observed this turn of events and said \u201cOkay, fine; if you won\u2019t do it, we will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is pure invention my part, of course; for one thing, these particular four guys would have been in elementary school at the time. And, while the above paragraph offers a fair description of the sound that emerges when you hit \u201cplay\u201d on this eight-song EP\u2014which inspired no less than Robert Plant himself to comment “they are Led Zeppelin I<\/i>\u201d\u2014the guys insist they never set out to be soundalikes. It\u2019s hard not to smile, though, when you see the Michigan quartet even managed to duplicate precisely Zep\u2019s distinctive configuration: twin brothers Josh and Jake Kiszka sing and play guitar, respectively, while younger brother Sam doubles on bass and keyboards, and Danny Wagner hammers away behind the drum kit. Plus, there\u2019s simply no denying that Greta Van Fleet\u2019s sound\u2014from the sky-scraping lead guitar to the bruising, grooving bass to the rolling-thunder drums and keening, passionate vocals\u2014is a remarkably rich and detailed recreation of everything that made Led Zeppelin distinctive. <\/p>\n

From The Fires<\/i> opens with the thundering \u201cSafari Song,\u201d which sounds like a lost outtake from Led Zeppelin II<\/i>, right down to Jake\u2019s ripping little between-line fills and the way Josh sings \u201cmama,\u201d before moving into the bluesier groove of \u201cEdge Of Darkness,\u201d featuring Jake\u2019s dark, menacing licks atop brother Sam and Danny Wagner\u2019s booming, deliberate foundation, as Josh wails over the top. When they follow this one-two punch with the solo mandolin that opens the more pastoral \u201cFlower Power,\u201d it\u2019s hard for any Zep fan not to laugh\u2026 I mean, it\u2019s exactly what they would do. <\/p>\n

\u201cHighway Tune\u201d\u2014which also appeared on the group\u2019s original four-song EP Black Smoke Rising<\/i>, is another highlight, big, dirty licks leading into a heavy groove, building to a furious, wordless chorus with more than a little \u201cImmigrant Song\u201d in its genes. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the group\u2019s sound is the way they infuse these four songs with the same primal surge and push and pull that Zeppelin mastered. <\/p>\n

Notable also is the fact that this eight-song EP features two covers, and neither is of a Zep tune. Instead, they give Sam Cooke\u2019s soul epic \u201cA Change Is Gonna Come\u201d an injection that\u2019s half gospel and half nitroglycerin, while Fairport Convention\u2019s \u201cMeet On The Ledge\u201d receives a ringing, almost stately treatment. Both show great arranging chops and considerable maturity.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a small but noticeable a drop-off in quality at the end. \u201cTalk On The Street\u201d feels like generic \u201970s hard rock, complete with fat, straightforward riffs, bass dropouts between chorus and verse, and lead vocals belted more than sung. \u201cBlack Smoke Rising\u201d is similarly underwhelming, a solid enough rocker that\u2019s neither as complex nor as memorable as what preceded it.<\/p>\n

From The Fires<\/i> is a fairly quick listen at eight tracks and 33 minutes, but offers ample reason to look forward to Greta Van Fleet\u2019s full-length debut, expected later this year. With the chance to build a fuller songbook and consider ways to continue expanding and evolving their admittedly familiar sound, this quartet appears poised to deliver a powerhouse debut album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10155],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45274","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-greta-van-fleet","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51975,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45274\/revisions\/51975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45274"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45274"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}