Robert Plant launched the Digging Deep podcast in 2019 as a way for him to explore the intricacies and oddities of his body of work. A year later, he released
Digging Deep: Subterranea, a double-disc deep dive that effectively functions as a soundtrack to the podcast.
Plant talks about
Led Zeppelin tunes on Digging Deep, but
Subterranea pointedly concentrates on his solo career. It's a compilation that strives to make overarching connections, so it doesn't proceed in a chronological order, nor does it have all of his hits. Neither his oldies folly
the Honeydrippers nor
Raising Sand, his Grammy-winning collaboration with
Alison Krauss, are here, nor are there big rock radio hits like "Little by Little" and "Tall Cool One." Instead,
Digging Deep: Subterranea places 1993's
Fate of Nations at the forefront and follows its strands front and back, creating a moody, adventurous bit of autobiography. Maybe it doesn't deliver the hits the way most compilations do, but it certainly captures the musical wanderlust that defines
Plant's career. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine