Greta Van Fleet
Anthem Of The Peaceful Army

Much has been written and said in the last year and a half since Greta Van Fleet, a rock band from Michigan (a U.S. state not so irrelevant when it comes to the history, for example, of Blues) led by the Kiszka brothers and drummer Daniel Wagner, officially landed in the rock music market, also sparking debates of certain interest regarding the strong influence that the legendary Led Zeppelin had on their music and the fact that they may be considered, in all respects, a simple, albeit excellent, "cover band" of the latter.

Well, the answer I can give you to this question will be the following: yes, it is absolutely irrefutable that their music has been massively influenced by the mythological works of the “eminent duo” Jimmy & Robert (Page and Plant, of course), but at the same time, these talented youngsters from Michigan have managed, with their “passionate” way of making Music with a capital M, to make an otherwise overwhelmingly current and, above all, fresh of contents, Hard Rock sound, tinged with Blues and Folk in some places, which after the magnificent glories of the Seventies (and, in part, the Eighties) seemed dramatically to have been lost in the night of time.

This album, with the prophetic title Anthem Of The Peaceful Army (translatable as Anthem of the Peaceful Army), is nothing but a perfect testimony of what was written earlier and is also an album that, although it has nothing so new or revolutionary, it really deserves to be explored from start to finish. It begins with the suggestive Age Of Man, a ballad of almost 6 minutes in which the Kiszka brothers seem to delve fully into the experimentation present on the second side of Zeppelin's historic ‘Physical Graffiti’: note, in fact, the use of synthesizers and organ that from the first notes almost immediately evoke the nocturnal In The Light, present as the first track of the aforementioned album. With The Cold Wind, instead, you dive into the universe of all riff and fast but incisive solos of ‘Led Zeppelin II’ with Joshua Kiszka’s voice at the forefront, with incredibly “Plantesque” traits that we certainly have a first, tangible essay of here. In the same vein is When The Curtain Falls, enriched by a incisive text that attacks, though not too covertly, the glossy Hollywood world (“Camera, lights, and action / and words you know so well / Are you in vogue or out of fashion / in a Hollywood of hell”). The delightful Watching Over can be very well appreciated for the melodic and technical abilities on the six strings of Jacob Kiszka, dealing with a series of riffs and solos, recreated with the effects of a beautiful electric sitar reminiscent of Beatles-like memory. Lover, Leaver (Taker, Believer) is, instead, the most creative and pulsating track of the album with Jacob being very inspired and unleashed for the almost 6 minutes of the song and a rhythm section that sees Samuel Kiszka and Daniel Wagner decidedly on fire. With the very sweet You’re The One we move instead to the semi-acoustic sounds of ‘Led Zeppelin I’, since the track has significant similarities with Your Time Is Gonna Come from the first Zeppelin masterpiece, but unlike the latter, here we have an unprecedented Hammond solo by Samuel who also proves to be endowed with very good numbers, a bit like John Paul Jones was, who also happened to be a bassist/multi-instrumentalist by profession. The New Day traces, instead, the footsteps of ‘Led Zeppelin III’ with a progression between a similar-acoustic Folk and the electric leading to decidedly good results. Conversely, The Mountain Of The Sun has a beautiful Blues structure with a beautiful opening riff, rendered with the slide, which closely resembles some pieces of late Fifties Electric Blues (which the excellent Page was also inspired by, moreover) and a rhythm section here also impeccable. But the most ambitious track of all is certainly Brave New World which starts slowly and then proceeds in an irresistible crescendo leading to a final solo by Jacob which in this case, for the creative use of distortions, even assumes Hendrixian suggestions (Jacob, among other things, has most probably inherited from the legendary Jimi his habit of playing the guitar behind his back, for example!). Anthem finally closes, with its acoustic and decidedly relaxed pace, precisely “à la Led Zeppelin” a work that, therefore, we could define overall very good and which confirms not only the excellent debut of In The Fires of last year, but above all highlights the qualities of a group that, if it will demonstrate with the passage of time and especially with the next albums to maintain its already strong musical identity, implementing it with a variety of styles increasingly distinctive, will certainly make talk of itself very positively, without airing comparisons with Led Zeppelin and associates who have given so much to Rock, but which in the case of the GVF must represent nothing but an excellent starting point towards the next (hopefully!) future successes.