The Battle at Garden's Gate in Bloomington, MN

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 taken 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
, an album that makes everything that worked the first time bigger and louder. The group's unexpected success meant they had the power to hire an A-list producer, so they brought in
Greg Kurstin
-- a Grammy winner for his work with
Adele
and
Beck
who'd also helmed records by
Paul McCartney
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. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine