Robert Plant’s Saving Grace review – self-effacing superstar still sounds astonishing

Between songs, Robert Plant describes his latest project, Saving Grace, as hailing “from the west side of common sense”. It’s a self-effacing remark but he has a point. Most rock stars of his vintage and stature (78 next year, somewhere between 200m and 300m albums sold with Led Zeppelin) would be out there underlining their status by touring the hits. But as anyone who has followed Plant’s serpentine post-Zeppelin career will tell you, the straightforward option doesn’t seem to hold great appeal for him.

So Saving Grace are a band assembled from musicians local to his home in Shropshire – though it isn’t entirely clear if Plant is joking when he suggests he found multi-instrumentalist Matt Worley working in the local tourist information office. Their oeuvre is an intriguing stew of traditional folk songs (The Cuckoo, As I Roved Out); covers that pay testament to Plant’s famously catholic tastes (Everybody’s Song by Low rubs shoulders with It’s a Beautiful Day Today by 60s psych heroes Moby Grape); and a scattering of Led Zeppelin tracks that you could fairly describe as radically rearranged: both Ramble On and Four Sticks now heavily feature an accordion, with the low end provided not by a bass guitar but a cello. Moreover, this is an evening in which one of the most renowned frontmen in rock history – whose voice is in quite astonishing nick – seems happy to regularly cede the spotlight, and effectively act as a backing singer for Worley and vocalist Suzi Dian.

A collective effort … Plant and Saving Grace. Photograph: Sonja Horsman/The Guardian

It would be quixotic if the results didn’t sound so good. At turns, the music is eerie – the vocals on their version of As I Roved Out are at a distinctly peculiar, slightly unsettling angle to the backing – as well as exploratory and, for all the unlikely instrumentation, muscular. Who knew a mandolin could sound so clangorous?

Dian is a fantastic vocalist, so much so that Plant receding into the background never seems like an affectation. Instead, he and Saving Grace have succeeded in coming up with music that genuinely feels like a collective effort, with each member tugging the sound in different directions. You never get the impression you’re watching a superstar and a backing band. “Exploring the possibilities,” Plant nods happily, by way of explanation, a man making capital by doggedly following his nose.