Rolling Stone (8/8/02, p.77) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...This album will not disappoint if you prefer Plant in ballad mode...his restraint is what ultimately illuminates this album, from the tart take on Dylan's 'One More Cup Of Coffee' to the lovely, elegiac cover of Skip Spence's 'Skip's Song'."
Uncut (1/03, p.95) - Ranked #18 in Uncut's "100 Best Albums of the Year"
Uncut (8/02, p.115) - 4 out of 5 - "...He's still got the voice...a pleasingly psychedelic edge....a fine collection..."
CMJ (7/22/02, p.14) - "...Some of the best music Plant has recorded since his Zep heyday."
Mojo (Publisher) (7/02, p.96) - "...Plant revisits where his head was at in '67 [before Led Zep]...he belongs in the English Romantic tradition and...he's also half in love easeful death, a darkling mood much explored herein..."
Personnel: Robert Plant (vocals); Justin Adams (guitar, ghimbri); Porl Thompson (guitar); B.J. Cole (pedal steel); John Baggott (keyboards); Charlie Jones (bass); Clive Deamer (drums, percussion); Raj Das, May Clee Cadman, Ginny Clee (background vocals).
DREAMLAND was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album. "Darkness, Darkness" was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Awards for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.
Personnel: Robert Plant (vocals); Porl Thompson (guitar); B.J. Cole (pedal steel guitar); John Baggott (keyboards); Clive Deamer (drums); Justin Adams (darabukka); Ginny Clee, Raj Das, May Clee Cadman (background vocals).
Audio Remasterers: Dan Hersch; Bill Inglot; Raj Das.
Recording information: 2002.
While there's nothing particularly retro about the proceedings on DREAMLAND, Robert Plant's first solo album of the 21st century finds him reaching back to his roots. This entails not so much a return to the turbo-blues bombast of Led Zeppelin, but a look even further back to the country blues that inspired the young, pre-Zep Plant, and to the kind of psych-folk troubadours whose magic filled the air when "Stairway to Heaven" was just a gleam in Jimmy Page's eye.
Towards this end, Plant deconstructs/reconstructs old blues tunes such as "Fixin' To Die" and "Win My Train Fare Home" as well as tackling material by the likes of Tim Buckley (the shimmering "Song to the Siren," Skip Spence (the Moby Grape-era "Skip's Song"), and Bob Dylan (a Middle Eastern-tinged take on "One More Cup of Coffee"). Though most of Plant's solo career has frankly not been rife with memorable songs, he comes up with a number of impressive original tunes here, showing that he knows how to keep up with the present and the future as well as the past.