New Greta Van Fleet Single: Still Aping Led Zeppelin

Greta Van Fleet, everyone’s favorite young rock band to argue about — and maybe secretly everyone’s favorite band — have announced a new album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate, and unveiled a brand new single, “Age of Machine.”

When the band released the album’s first single back in October, “My Way, Soon,” it seemed as if they’d taken the endless Led Zeppelin comparisons to heart and pushed off in a (slightly) new direction. The song’s lyrics even underscored a desire to do just that.

But with “Age of Machine,” the band named after an 88-year-old grandma are back to their old tricks… they’re just aping Houses of the Holy now instead of Led Zeppelin I.

I happen to love Houses of the Holy, and I even like Greta Van Fleet to the extent that they’re a perfectly fine rock band, but let’s just be honest about what’s happening here. This song is a nearly seven minute long plodding rocker, is carried by a haunting Jimmy Page-esque lead guitar line backed by a supremely John Paul Jones-inspired organ filling in the cracks, the dude’s voice is what it is (a Robert Plant deadringer), and an eventual music video for this song may as well feature the band members riding horses and scaling mountaintops. You could just pop on The Song Remains the Same and get the same effect!

Check out the track below. Despite what I wrote in the preceding paragraph, I actually quite like it. The Battle at Garden’s Gate comes out April 16 and can be pre-ordered here.