On {^Mighty Rearranger}, the core of the band {$Robert Plant} showcased on 2002's {^Dreamland} -- and named {$the Strange Sensation} -- is a full-blown expanded lineup that shares the bill with him. Guitarists {$Justin Adams} and {$Skin Tyson}, drummer {$Clive Deamer}, keyboardist {$John Baggot}, and bassist {$Billy Fuller} help {$Plant} give listeners his most musically satisfying and diverse recording since, well, {$Led Zeppelin}'s {^Physical Grafitti}. The reference is not a mere platitude to {$Plant}'s pedigree. The songs, production, and sequencing of the album overtly incorporates those sounds as well as those of Eastern {\modalism}, Malian {\folk}, {\guitar rock}, {\R&B}, and others, for inspiration -- and why shouldn't they? {^Mighty Rearranger} opens with {&"Another Tribe,"} a sociopolitical {\ballad} that touches upon the textural string backdrops from {$Zep}'s {&"Kashmir"} and is fueled by Moroccan bendir drums. {$Adams}' guitar shifts it over to {\rock} in the middle, but never crowds the crystalline lilting vocal. The single, {&"Shine It All Around,"} sports {$Deamer}'s crunch and crack drums, while {$Adams}' canny emulation of {$Jimmy Page}'s Les Paul toneography fills {$Plant}'s sung and moaned lines with ferocity. But it is {&"Freedom Fries,"} with its startling percussive syncopation and juxtaposition of roots {\rockabilly} {\blues} and {\hard rock} -- à la {&"Black Dog"} -- that breaks the record wide open and shatters the sensual tension with pure Dionysian RAWK swagger. On {&"Tin Pan Valley,"} {$Baggot}'s whispering keyboard lines under {$Plant}'s nocturnal moan set a mood -- slippery, sexy, undulating -- before {$Deamer} cracks through with cymbal and snare work that not only emulates {$John Bonham}, but evokes his power, unfurling the {$Zep} talons deeper into the core of the album. The beautiful balladry of {&"All the King's Horses"} offers solid proof of {$Plant}'s ability to reference the English folk tradition with elegance and taste, and his continued acumen for fine lyric writing. The acoustic guitars purposely kiss the same space that {$Page} did on {&"Over the Hills and Far Away"} and {&"Goin' to California,"} but are balanced by {$Adams}' pastoral electric {\country} fills. But here's the important part: the Zeppelin spirit that is seemingly ever present here takes nothing away from the startling imagination and creativity on {^Mighty Rearranger} -- it actually serves, rather than houses, the songs it adorns. And it's the songs, like the sultry slow stroll of {&"The Enchanter"} and the North African-flavored rocker {&"Takamba,"} that matter. {$Plant} and {$Strange Sensation} have painstakingly and energetically crafted an album that takes his full history into account, yet offers something living, breathing, and actually new. This is big {\rock} music making an appearance on the scene agian. It's music that is full of itself, sneers at the competition, and pushes forward by acknowledging the full breadth of the music's tarted-up history. The dramatic {&"Let the Four Winds Blow"} touches everything from early {\rock & roll} to droning {\Delta blues} to biker {\soundtrack} music in a dramatic and utterly serious song. The title track uses the Malian guitar plank and turns it back on itself, pointing its gaze toward {$John Lee Hooker}, {$Skip James}, and the {\piano blues} of {$Otis Spann}. The album closes with {$Baggot}'s barroom {\blues} piano that propels {$Plant} to pay a brief barrelhouse tribute to {$Ray Charles} on {&"Brother Ray."} {^Mighty Rearranger} is a literate, ambitious, and sublimely vulgar exercise in how to make a mature yet utterly unfettered {\rock & roll} album that takes chances, not prisoners, and apologizes for nothing. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide