The Battle at Garden's Gate is the kind of album title that accurately reflects the contents within.
Greta Van Fleet isn't much concerned with the modern world, preferring to live in a fantasy of their own creation, one cobbled together with ideas learned from old albums from
Led Zeppelin,
Rush, and
Styx. All these elements were in place on their 2018 debut
Anthem of the Peaceful Army, but they're amplified on
The Battle at Garden's Gate, an album that makes everything that worked the first time bigger and louder, or just more. The group's unexpected success meant they had the power to enlist an A-list producer, so they brought
Greg Kurstin -- a Grammy winner for his work with
Adele and
Beck who also helmed records by
Paul McCartney and
Foo Fighters -- into the studio to help shape their fanciful notions and heavy riffs.
Kurstin manages to conjure the expansive vistas that were so common in 1974, letting the band puff up their pomp and ramble on. As texture is
Greta Van Fleet's main gift, this is for the best: the extra length gives the impression that the group is in control of their fantasy. This spell works best when guitarist
Jake Kiszka, bassist
Sam Kiszka, and drummer Danny Wagner labor to conjure the ghost of
Houses of the Holy, paying rapt attention to the slight shifts in light and shade. The spell is punctured whenever
Josh Kiszka stumbles in to caterwaul his tales of barbarians and nations. More
Geddy Lee than
Robert Plant,
Josh Kiszka commands attention then alienates; his wail is the weak link in a group who is getting better at their period-accurate cosplay. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine