OK, a riddle. What do a soft-voiced, fiddle-playing bluegrass maven and a long-haired front man from a legendary classic rock band have in common? Answer: one of each appears on Raising Sand — Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s duet record. Released last year on Krauss' long-time label, Rounder Records, I was more than reluctant to fork over the cash for this album. I’m a fan of both Plant and Krauss, fan enough to know that their signature sounds couldn’t be farther apart. Still, after stumbling upon two tracks (“Gone, Gone, Gone” and “Through the Morning, Through the Night”) while surfing iTunes, I knew I’d have to make room in my record collection. So how does one merge the sounds of Led Zeppelin with Alison Krauss and Union Station? Well, you don’t. If this album had tried to achieve some kind of weird hybrid, we’d have a novelty record on our hands…a disposable, forgettable work. What was produced is nowhere near a combination of bluegrass and blues-rock. Through some sort of musical alchemy, producer T-Bone Burnett has created a completely new sound with Plant and Krauss. It’s difficult to tell if this new sound is country, folk, or rock but one thing is for certain: it’s genius. The best arrangement on this disc, by far, is the old Milton Campbell tune “Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson.” Originally a fast blues song, T-Bone has the song segueing back and forth from a crunchy soul vamp into a bass-slapping rockabilly swing replete with a Chuck Berry-esque guitar solo. “Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On),” the first single from Raising Sand, is also a fantastic track. Plant has never been known as a harmony singer, but this Everly Brothers cover features Plant and Krauss singing as tightly as Don and Phil ever did. Though the influences of bluegrass and blues are downplayed on Raising Sand, they’re still present…they just make themselves known in more subtle ways. Both blues and bluegrass have a certain darkness in common—both can be joyous and jubilant but are also prone to throw light on the darker, more sinister side of human nature. Raising Sand features that same kind of schizophrenia. For every song like “Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)” and “Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson” there’s a song that contemplates the darker side of humanity and is still more beautiful for it. On “Through the Morning, Through the Night,” the song’s male protagonist’s woman has left. Krauss sings the lines “believe me when I tell you I could never kill a man, believe me when I tell you I will try to understand.” On the surface it seems like a scorned lover’s honest concession, but the pain in Krauss’s voice tells us it’s a lie. Someone’s going to pay, and dearly, for this loss. “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us” is similarly dark and alluring. A tribute to a lost love and legendary blues-woman Sister Rosetta Tharp, this song is a hauntingly beautiful gypsy stomp. Sure, it features banjos and fiddles…but they sound like they’re from Eastern Europe, not Eastern Kentucky. Like most of the album, it’s weird, but beautifully so. Don’t approach Raising Sand expecting a party record. It’s not. Don’t expect to be blown away by walls of sound or soaring vocals. You won’t find them. You can expect music like you’ve never heard before. Raising Sand is a quiet, contemplative, haunting record and I love it. Robert Plant plans to go back on the road with Led Zeppelin next year and there are talks of a new Led Zep album, but hopefully at some point in the future he’ll head back into the studio with Alison and give us a sequel.

Leave a message for Staff Writer Zack Harold at 304-369-1165