Since ChatGPT burst into our lives, debates about how artificial intelligence will affect the world of music have been in vogue. In recent months, we have been able to hear Kurt Cobain “sing” Hole’s “Celebrity Skin”, Liam Gallagher on the “lost” Oasis album, or Drake and The Weeknd’s “duo” created by or thanks to this technology.
It is possible that someone who has not yet been in contact with Greta Van Fleet and heard for the first time star catcher, you might think that this is a commission to create a new Led Zeppelin album based on the information collected in their discography. The iconic band’s clone tag has haunted them since the beginning, but now that they’ve reached their third album, it’s clear that the Michigan quartet isn’t uncomfortable with the label at all, but is making a statement about it.
IN star catcher they insist on using elements that everyone identifies with Zeppelin: a high-pitched voice, acoustic guitar arpeggios combined with electric leads, rumbling drums (the one on “Sacred The Thread” is so reminiscent of “When The Leeve Breaks” that it seems almost a personal joke), lyrics full of epic and mystic … but, as happened in the previous one. Battle at the garden gateGreta Van Fleet seems to have noticed only the most progressive side of the British. Lots of No Mercy and some Black Dog.
Again, almost all of the tracks are in half tempo, and the one where they seem to finally relax, the frenetic “Runway Blues”, ends at 75 seconds because singer Josh Kiske apparently didn’t like it enough to end it. Of course, at least Dave Cobb’s (Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton, Slash) production is less bombastic than Greg Kurstin’s production in Battle of Garden Gate this helps songs like “The Falling Sky” (including the harmonica solo), “Meeting The Master”, “Frozen Light” or “Farewell For Now” fit better into the music.
Those who hated them from the very beginning will not find here a single reason to redeem them, and I do not blame them. However, as is the case with his other works, once again I was surprised to have a lot of fun with this space ode from the seventies without a tail and without a tail, beware! They have already said that they would like to make a film. If Spinal Tap was a fictional spoof of stone dinosaurs, then Greta Van Fleet unwittingly became a serious, flesh-and-blood version of Spinal Tap. For that alone, they deserve to exist.
JORDI MEIA