Greta Van Fleet- The Battle At Garden’s Gate: Trying to Change
Greta Van Fleet is a band that has made a lot of noise lately, not all positive, in the music world mainly because of the fact that they sounded like a B-side Zeppelin band for the earlier part of their career. I won’t lie though I didn’t mind this, mainly because a lot of the mainstream rock music at the time their first EP came out was lackluster to say the least. So to have a sound like this that was from the past and from something that I do like a lot was kind of refreshing. However things went pretty down hill fast with their actual debut record “Anthem of the Peaceful Army.” Which to be honest I never even finished because it was just so boring. Everything I heard on it just sounded like a poor man’s Led Zeppelin minus any of the bite Zeppelin had in their music. I still haven’t finished the album and probably will never in fear that I may literally be bored to death. So going into this album I was hoping for something a little more out there and extravagant and adventurous. Something that showed that they can be more that a Led Zeppelin/Rush cover band, and I guess to a certain degree, they kind of did it?
I can say this for sure, this album definitely was better than their debut…..but that also doesn’t mean this album is good either.
I will say that I do like the fact they in fact became more adventurous and were at least trying to break out of the mold that they had made for themselves. For one the songs are longer for the most part on her usually being around 5–6 minutes in length, and even on the songs I didn’t care for, the songs don’t overstay their welcome. They more or less feel like 4 minute songs max which shows that they can structurally write songs this long without getting stale ideas. I do think the instrumentals on most of these songs are pretty decent. Good riffs, decent drumming, some pretty great use of an organ as well. There are also some pretty impressive sounding guitar solos on this as well. The opening track on this album, “Heat Above”, is probably one of their best songs they have recorded yet. The organ opening to this track really sets a grand tone for this song leaving the rest of the instrumentation to match it, which it does. Even though the riffs and drums sound like something taken from the 70’s, it sounds like something actually original from these guys, which led me to have some hope that they could nail that on the rest of the album……. I was led astray.
The very next track, “My Way, Soon” is an awful Rush ripoff with bad mixing. I don’t know what it is about this track specifically but the snare drum sticks out just a little bit like a sore thumb and I can’t help but notice it every time I hear this song. Plus the vocals are also just……..they are just not it.
That’s the main problem from this album for me honestly, the vocals. Which is the hardest thing for me to describe, simply because I do lack the knowledge on singing and types of it. But I can tell you this for sure, the singer is trying way too hard to not sound like Robert Plant. His attempts at trying to hit these really hard notes just end up sounding like he is yelling his head off. Plus he acts like he is trying to figure out what pitch he wants to sing on the fly within individual parts of the song. Hell it isn’t even individual parts, it sounds like he is trying to do it within a line. This happens consistently throughout the entirety of the album, except with the track “Trip the Light Fantastic,” where honestly he sounds the best, mainly cause he actually sounds more comfortable behind the mic.
In all fairness, the lead singer isn’t the only reason why some tracks on here don’t hit. “Tears of Rain” is this incredibly boring ballad with some of the blandest instrumentation I’ve heard from these guys yet. “Stardust Chords” just simply confuses me. It starts off with this booming bass hit which makes it sound like it’s going to be grand but then just turns into what kind of sounds like a mess. Whenever I listen to it, I can’t seem to hear the beat correctly like it’s one of those weird pictures they use for eye tests, yet for ears. It always takes a second for me to actually hear correctly what is going on. Doesn’t matter because what it is isn’t all that worth hearing. “Light My Love” once again is just another painfully boring track that almost seems like a filler song…….on a 12 track album.
Then we have the grand finale on this album “The Weight of Dreams.” Which is legitimately their attempt at making a stairway to heaven style of song. Over 8 minutes long, slow start, picks up throughout the song, yada yada yada. But my god, the vocals, they ruin anything about this song that is good. He does this yell/scream thing that just sounds so out of place. Then all of a sudden in the middle of the track they take a page out of the TOOL playbook with the scream coming back from a fade out to a fade in to merge ferociously with the instrumentation (“The Grudge”). Except when TOOL did it, it sounded amazing, not so much here.
Overall, this album is definitely not anywhere near the worst that I have ever heard, it’s really not that bad of an album in general. I honestly think with some better vocals on this thing, I would probably even say it is an ok album. But with the very awkward vocal performances on the bulk of this album, the quality of even the just ok songs starts to dip. Getting better for sure, but a lot of work to do.
4/10
BEST: Heat Above, Trip The Light Fantastic
WORST: Tears Of Rain
