With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

I finally got a chance to listen to Michigan’s Greta Van Fleet on my recent flight to New York City from Manchester in the UK. I listened to all of their current album ‘Anthem Of The Peaceful Army’ and a few tracks from their earlier EPs. There has been a great deal of noise, both positive and negative, about them on social media and I wanted to know if they lived up to the hype or the criticism. Greta Van Fleet are clearly talented musicians who play what they play really well. But it seems that like many other folk I have issues with what they play. They write and play their own songs (apart from a handful of covers from earlier releases. Their cover of Sam Cooke’s ” A Change Is Gonna Come” is very well handled).

While these songs are in effect original songs they are so derivative of Led Zeppelin that in my opinion it borders on plagiarism. My advice to Danny Wagner, Sam, Jake and Josh Kiszka is to learn to plow a more original furrow or simply become a Led Zeppelin tribute act. But having said that it does appear that they a Marmite band in that people either love them or hate them, no one seems to be completely indifferent to them. What do you think of Greta Van Fleet?