Album Review: Greta Van Fleet - Anthem Of The Peaceful Army

If you've heard of Greta Van Fleet, the odds are very good I already know what you have heard about them. They cannot seemingly be mentioned without a certain bands from the 70s being brought into the equation. There's a reason for that, as both their sound and look are highly reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, but the simple comparison misses out on an important piece of the equation. While the sound Greta Van Fleet mines may be old, they do put a new spin on it. I might be one of the very few, but Led Zeppelin has never appealed to me. I understand their importance, but their music has never hit the marks that I look for when I'm listening. Specifically, Robert Plant rarely sang in the melodic style that appeals to me. He was either singing straight blues (a genre I'm not a fan of), or was wailing away without much melodic development (again, not something I'm a fan of).

Over their first two EPs, Greta Van Fleet took the building blocks that already existed, and grafted onto them a more modern melodic sensibility. "Black Smoke Rising", in particular, is a catchier number than anything I have ever heard from Zeppelin. In that is a sound that can allow Greta Van Fleet to use the past to create the future. That is the sound of rock and roll returning to the mainstream... if they can keep it up.

Right off the bat, the band shows us they understand that dynamics are what makes rock and roll work. "Age Of Man" kicks things off with soft guitars and an isolated vocal, then builds into a bluesy riff that isn't layered to excess. There's plenty of breathing room to the mix, with plenty of room for the bass to stand out, and guitars that are left natural enough to sound real. It could be considered a play on the past, but it's also the way that best serves the music. We see that to this day with Slash's solo work. He uses the same kind of guitar tones in his music, and his sound is as good as anyone alive.

What's noticeable about this record is that the band is stretching their legs, expanding on their core songwriting by letting the songs drift into instrumental passages that give them a chance to play around themselves without hurting their best attributes. The aforementioned "Age Of Man" does that, flowing through two sections with outside instrumentation giving the song some added gravitas, all the while returning to the main hook, which delivers in that way I never felt Zeppelin did.

"When The Curtain Falls" was the first taste we got of the record, and it stands out still as one of the highlights. It is what Greta Van Fleet is, when boiled to the essence. With brevity, the band is able to transport us back to 1975, but do it in a way that still embraces the evolution rock has gone through in the intervening years. Those four minutes are old-school rock and roll, done as well as it can be.

But like all young bands, there are missteps along the way. "Love, Leaver (Taker, Believer)" has some fine guitar playing, but the track bogs down when the main hook comes along, because it is the four words wailed as single long notes, with no melodic development to be heard. It's a moment that resembles the 70s too much, because it falls into the style of songwriting from back then that feels completely under-developed when compared to what rock is capable of today.

Compare that track with "You're The One", which turns itself into a soft rock sing-along that an entire arena could use as a cell-phones-in-the-air moment to bring everyone together. It's exactly the moment when Greta Van Fleet's potential is most evident. Sure, they are appealing to the people who love classic rock and want to relive that sound, but they are also a band that can write songs unlike any that classic rock ever had. There is an inviting side to their best music that transcends genre, and I can't say I've ever heard that from the big names of the past (at least not on their 'classic' records).

"The New Day" is a similar song, and listening to them back to back, I can't figure out why the band didn't release one of those two tracks as a single. "Lover, Leaver" and "Watching Over" both were, and they are the two tracks that least embody the robust hooks that power the majority of the record. Honestly, I was ambivalent about the record because of those two singles. But now that I've heard them as the weakest numbers, the record has taken on new strength. The previous double EP was a fine collection of songs, but didn't hold together like this collection does as an album. There is something to these songs, even with the diversity of their approaches, that is shared between them, which is what a good album should do.

When I first heard Greta Van Fleet, I didn't get what the hype was. Slowly, I started finding the music staying with me more and more. And now, with "Anthem Of The Peaceful Army" here, I can fully understand it. They still have to prove consistency like Graveyard has, but Greta Van Fleet has quickly moved themselves into the top tier of bands who are breathing new life into classic rock. Living up to the hype is hard, but Greta Van Fleet has done it. "Anthem Of The Peaceful Army" is fantastic.