Musical Discovery

"Raising Sand" by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

From the Amazon.co.uk Description:
American bluegrass star Alison Krauss and Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant team up for one of contemporary music's most unlikely partnerships, and in doing so create a memorable and diverse collection of lovingly crafted songs.

The MusicOMH review expands on this:
It's a curiosity that, just as the Led Zeppelin revival is reaching fever pitch, Robert Plant is sneaking out this album of reverential duets with Alison Krauss. What it does, though, is show the singer's softer, sensitive side - something not all that apparent when atop thunderous Jimmy Page guitar riffs.

In his recent solo career Plant has tended to keep an open book, as last album 'Mighty Rearranger' testified, with its variety of loosely world music-influenced songs. Raising Sand narrows the parameters a little to concern itself with lightly bluesy music, but at no time does either singer sound restricted.

Quite the opposite. Krauss is an ideal vocal foil, and at times the two really do sing as one. The real revelation is Plant's ability to sing quietly, with exquisite tenderness, for long periods of time. Whilst there were occasional hints of this with Zeppelin this is uncharted recorded territory, and the accompanying textures are parted in respect of this.

Finally, the BBC review:
The first thing you notice about Raising Sand is how the pair's vocals compliment each other. Krauss’ honey-sweet chords can be saccharine on her own work at times, but here she's balanced by the mature grain of Plant's almost whispered delivery. On "Killing The Blues" or Gene Clark’s "Polly Come Home" they nudge up against each other, buoyed up by Greg Leisz’s floating pedal steel. And this from a man renowned for going ‘baybeeee, baybeee’. Phew...