OOOH, YEAH. OOOH-OOH, YEAH.

When it comes to classic rockers, the rule is as follows: the larger the legend, the more ridiculous the sound (and hair) becomes. Lean, edgy artists return as sappy balladeers desecrating other people's songs (Rod Stewart), shill cell phones (Steven Tyler) or launch megatours that no one but the queen can afford to see (the Stones).

Robert Plant could have easily phoned it in at this point. He was, after all, the premier rock god of the '70s. That image of him in the open kimono and dangerously low hip-huggers graced more black-light posters than the "Keep On Truckin' " guy. But on his first solo album of original material since 1993, Plant forgoes an orchestra or a duo with Puffy to offer up an unassuming, intimate, eccentric rock album. "Mighty Rearranger" was made in the 57-year-old singer's garage in England with members of the sublime trip-hop collective Portishead (whom he dubs the Strange Sensation). It is a mystical, arty CD, filled with the North African melodies Plant discovered on his extensive travels through the Sahara, Algeria and many other dusty places that Mick Jagger would surely skip for the south of France.

Plant's voice is still compelling, even though he doesn't hit those screaming highs that he did back in the day. Instead, he hums, whispers and sings with the artistic abandon of someone who truly still loves, and feels, what he does. Lyrically, he combines his penchant for Misty Mountain escapism with the realities of war and governmental hypocrisy. On "Tin Pan Valley" he deftly explains what it's like to be Robert Plant in 2005: "There's parasols and barbeques and loungers by the pool/Late night conversations with 20th-century cool/My peers may flirt with cabaret--some fake the rebel yell/Me I'm moving up to higher ground/I must escape their hell." And he does. If authenticity counts for anything, Plant's sins have surely been forgiven.