MAY REWIND: JOHN PAUL JONES ON A REBUILD OF LED ZEP’S LEVEE.

Been a while since we did a little Rewind (hello again! Anyone there? No? OK…. ) so a couple of these tracks are merely quite new instead of shiny sparkly new.

Like that matters. Let’s dig.

DELVING – Delving

Much like Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and the daren’t-look-it-up Cock and Ball Torture (thanks to Dan or Danny’s list at rateyourmusic.com for that gem), Delving have done a song named after themselves. Nice. Delving’s the solo project of Nick DiSalvo from Elder. Haven’t heard Elder either till now, which is probably a chunky oversight, but if they’re half as awesome as the track Delving by the band Delving then they’re going on the Must Check list because this is everything you need from a guitar instrumental IF …heavy prog-tinged rock shakes your beans. You get a bit of taut, non-quirk Tortoise pushing hypnotic rhythms on repeat and some Porcupine Tree clean/heavy duality. But with fatter, groovier wheels.

That would probably be enough but Delving says no. How about a subtle but crushing post-metal drop near the end??? ‘kin ‘ell, YES. Shades of Isis, just for a sec. Monu-bloody-mental and highly addictive, check Delving here.

AQUARIAN – Death, Taxes and Hanger

Drum’ n’ bass backbone. Airy textures. High-speed motion. Fierce yet uplifting. Yep, I have no musical references to write about this stuff, but Death, Taxes and Hanger is a hell of a ride and if you’re of a certain vintage it’ll take you right back to 1997. Maybe. Aquarian himself, when he introduced the track to Mary Anne Hobbs, said: “Death, Taxes and Hanger is probably what you could consider atmospheric drum ‘n’ bass but with a bit of cheeky 90s tech step breakdown stuffed in for good measure … and classic progressive classic trance probably imprinted itself on there too.” There you go.

PLAYING FOR CHANGE – When The Levee Breaks

Change of pace now with a Zep-faithful rendition by a global cast of many for the Playing for Change Foundation, which aims ‘to connect the world through music’. Watch it and feel the optimism: music, beauty and good vibrations pour out of every performer on this clip. It transcends borders. And the bass being in the originator’s hands – a lean, lithe John Paul Jones – is the Levee cake’s icing as you can see.

Anything else? Downtuned nu-metal filth adds extra drag to the crawling beats of Tether by SCALPING. Dense subway darkness and pulsing momentum make strange euphoria in War Priests by The Allegorist.

’til next time!