Pounding Sand, 3 Out of 5 StarsT-Bone Burnette has that Appalachian blues dirge thing down. Hollow sounding bass, haunting strings and guitars, thudding drums...all atmosphere and no mass. And despite all the critical raves, he's manages to turn one of rock's most massive vocalists and one of bluegrass's most substantive singers into wispy tendrils of folkish fog. "Raising Sand" is a very average album from a pair of people who rarely fall short of greatness, from a producer who has his title listed on some of my all time favorites.
I'm not sure why this trio of people decided to make a CD comprised on mostly down-tempo dirges, but that's what you get. Only on the Everly Brothers' "Gone Gone Gone" does "Raising Sand" give a hint that roots music can be roots rocking. And Krauss' fiddle playing is only used to solid effect on "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us." "Sister Rosetta" actually haunts in a realistic way, as opposed the Burnette's forced period-production manipulation. I wanted a little Zep roar to appear, instead, Plant coos and moans a lot. Nothing takes flight.
When the songs work, one at a time, they're great. "Rich Woman," "Trampled Rose" and even the Led Zep cover "Please Read The Letter" highlight what "Raising Sand" could have been. But the entire album plods along in dire need of a little moonshine kick. It makes me wish Krauss, Plant and T-Bone had given a listen to T-Bone's work on the likes of King of America, Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams or even How Will the Wolf Survive?. Some adrenaline would have lifted "Raising Sand" to something far better that this mediocre offering.
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