With Saving Grace, Robert Plant is taking the opportunity to engage in one of his periodic, post-Zeppelin looks in the rear view. This isn’t to say Saving Grace—the name of Plant’s new album and his new band—is a rehash, it is not, but it is an acknowledgment that the singer, at 77, seems to be taking at least a little bit of stock in what came before as he did on Now and Zen and with his Page and Plant and Band of Joy projects.

With co-lead vocalist Suzi Dian playing a prominent role and Tony Kelsey (guitar), Matt Worley (banjo and strings), Barney Morse-Brown (cello) and Oli Jefferson (drums) being masterful purveyors of moody, atmospheric accompaniment, Saving Grace is what Plant’s collaborations with Alison Krauss would’ve sounded like if staked to the East. Plant, meanwhile, sneaks in coy references to Led Zeppelin recordings on “As I Roved Out” and “Too Far from You” that, though sly, are not so esoteric as to get lost.

As these traditional and Sarah Siskind titles suggest, Saving Grace is a covers album. It is also a band record, as Worley takes lead vocals on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Soul of a Man;” Plant sings their wispy arrangement of “I Never Will Marry” from a female perspective; and the musicians manage to make contemporary compositions like Low’s “Everybody’s Song” fit comfortably alongside the traditional “Gospel Plough” with musical arrangements that defy time and space.

If Plant were to stop here, Saving Grace could serve as an ideal wrap on one of rock’s most essential and eclectic careers. Given his propensity for moving forward, he won’t stop, leaving the album as a 2025 mile marker along Plant’s long, twisting aural road.