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Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Walking into Clarksdale Atlantic Records Who knows what makes an artist endure? Being alive can actually hurt your career. Your current work has to compete with countless greatest hits packages, retrospectives, and reissues. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant seem to be tired of fighting it, and have settled into a nice, quiet little niche. Walking Into Clarksdale could easily have followed In Through the Out Door as the next Led Zeppelin album. Although Bonzo and Jonesy are missing, the songs are still bluesy, heavy-handed one moment and atmospheric the next. The production has a bit more sheen, and the whole project seems a bit more tempered and glossy, but the songwriting is surprisingly fresh. Walking Into Clarksdale is what Page was reaching for back in â93 when he released the horrendous Coverdale/Page album. The new collaboration, in which the bass player and drummer share songwriting credits, is also unexpectedly cohesive. Through most of the first half of the album, from "When the World Was Young" to "Please Read the Letter," there is a clear narrative and distinct feel. The album ends on "Sons of Freedom," a fast-paced tune along the lines of "Wearinâ and Tearinâ," or the funkier "The Crunge." These two have a little more fir left in them than I would have given them credit for. Walking Into Clarksdale is a welcome relief after the last Plant/Page self-homage tour and unplugged nugget. The pair has found, after quite a bit of searching, that they are still each otherâs best partners. Though the comparisons to Led Zeppelin are inevitable, on Walking Into Clarksdale, Plant and Page arenât worshipping the past so much as being themselves. -Nick |
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