LED ZEPPELIN

After the irregular "Presence" and hit by their complicated personal situations, Led Zeppelin released "In Through The Out Door" (1979), their eighth and last studio album. A work that in most of its development lacks the indispensable contribution of Jimmy Page, one of the fundamental bases of the band's success, involved along with John Bonham in his battles against addictions, basically ceding the creative control of the album to John Paul Jones.

And beyond Jones' solvency and musical ability to take charge not only of the bass but also of the multiple keyboards, he is not Page (nor does he have to be), and so "In Through The Out Door" has little to do with what one might expect from those who marked the path of hard rock and inspired that of heavy metal. A bit of classic rock in the opening "In the Evening", fragments of the very progressive "Carouselambra" with Jones' keyboard display, and Page's guitar solo in the bluesy half-time of "I'm Gonna Crawl", escape from the ordinary, but neither the versatility of the great drummer that was Bonham in the Latinised and disconcerting "Fool in the Rain", nor Plant's heartfelt tribute to his young son in the poppy "All my Love" help to lift the album off the ground.

Page commented at the time that "In Through The Out Door" had left him (and a large legion of fans) unsatisfied, and that the intention for the next album was to return to Led Zeppelin's more muscular path, but the tragic and unexpected death of Bonham months later and the consequent decision to break up the band permanently cancelled any future projects, and ended the career of one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

2/2.5 stars

The difficult personal circumstances the band members were going through, with Robert Plant recovering from a serious car accident in Greece and both Jimmy Page and John Bonham in a tough battle with their addictions, cast a shadow over Led Zeppelin's near future. With no touring on the horizon and the urge to do something rather than fall into stagnation, the quartet decided that the best way to deal with the moment was to return to the recording studio, and the result was 'Presence' (1976), their seventh album, a work that took less than three weeks to complete.

Devoid of big production and frills (no keyboards, no acoustic elements), and focused on the most basic rock principles, 'Presence' travels an uneven path combining the brilliance of 'Achilles Last Stand' and its mythological references to the Trojan Achilles in a great guitar demonstration by Page, the best track by far on the album, the dense and choppy melodies of 'For Your Life' and 'Nobody's Fault but Mine', and the bluesy 'Tea for One', a heartfelt reflection by Plant with obvious similarities to 'Since I've Been Loving You' from 'Led Zeppelin III' sustained by Bonham's great percussive work in slow motion mode, with lesser tracks such as the insipid Funky airs of the burlesque 'Royal Orleans' and the nostalgic 'Hots On for Nowhere', or the monotonous and dull rockabilly of 'Candy Store Rock'.

It tasted like so little for such a great band, so little that one of the elements that attracted more attention than the music was the strange black object on the album cover and on the internal graphic packaging... The band's decline was giving its first warning sign.

2.5/3 stars

After the versatile 'Houses of the Holy' and with overflowing popularity translated into extensive tours and packed stages around the world, Led Zeppelin, exhausted, took a break and only two years later released 'Physical Graffiti' (1975), their sixth album and the most extensive of their discography, mixing songs developed for the occasion with pieces discarded in previous years.

And it is in this context that the Englishmen sustain their unmistakable hard rock imprint with the undeniable blues influences in songs like the erotic 'Custer Pie' and its incisive guitar riffs, or the extensive 'In my Time of Dying' with Page using a 'bottleneck' to achieve that dense and slippery sound seconded by John Bonham's boxed percussion and Robert Plant's very successful singing, but above all with the hypnotizing and mysterious 'Kashmir' and its orientalized orchestrated melody, one of the best of the album.

The band also reaffirms their folksy leanings with Page's beautiful acoustic arpeggios on the instrumental 'Bron-Yr-Aur' (original from 1970) or the fractured 'Black Country Woman' (dropped from Houses of the Holy) with Plant and excellent harmonica playing, and they retain that laudable exploratory spirit with the progressive chords of John Paul Jones' hypnotic synthesizer and Page's bowing effect on the intriguing 'In the Light', the funky chords of 'Trampled Under Foot', Jones' electric piano on the melodic 'Down by the Seaside' and the refreshing 'Boogie with Stu' with the bluesy piano of esteemed sessionist Ian Stewart (both tracks recovered from 1971), before closing with the glam airs of 'Sick Again', a mention of Led Zeppelin's innumerable groupies.

Despite the enormous wear and tear caused by the self-demanding nature of the band on their way to the top, which left some after-effects in terms of the intensity of the proposal, 'Physical Graffiti' is a very good work and surely the last great album by Page and company.

3.5/4 stars

Review Nº 781

"Coda" is the ninth and last studio album or a compilation album, as you wish, of Led Zeppelin, released in 1982. It's a collection of unused tracks taken from various sessions during Led Zeppelin's musical career, and so, it could be heard as a quasi compilation album of unreleased tracks in the same tradition of other albums such as "Odds And Sods" of The Who and "Basement Tapes" of Bob Dylan. It was released two years after Led Zeppelin had officially disbanded following the death of their drummer John Bonham. The word "coda", meaning a passage that ends a musical piece following the main body, was therefore chosen as a title. So, it represents the end of the musical career of a great band.

"Coda" has eight tracks. The first track "We're Gonna Groove" was a song co-written by Ben E. King and James A. Bethea with the original title "Groovin". It's a live track recorded on 9 January 1970 in London and was edited with guitar overdubs. This track was originally stated for inclusion on "Led Zeppelin II" and kicks off the compilation album with the heavy, funky blues so common on the early band's works. Lyrically, it's a song with a high energy and an excellent musicianship, being just a plain of a pure Rock'n'Roll song. The second track "Poor Tom" was written by Page and Plant and is an outtake from "Led Zeppelin III". It tells us the story of the eponymous railroad worker whose clairvoyance leads to the knowledge of his wife's affairs. Musically, it opens with a solid drum riff and with Plant dinging softly. The drums are the predominant instrument through the early musical stages of the group and this song isn't an exception. However, it's very curious and extremely rare for the highlight on an acoustic song to be the drums. The third track "I Can't Quit You Baby" was written by Willie Dixon and recorded by Otis Rush in 1965. It was included on Led Zeppelin's debut studio album in 1969. It's an edited live track recorded on 9 January 1970 at the Royal Albert Hall, in London. It's a song heavily influenced by the blues riffs and the slow bass drumming. This live version is better than the original with nice guitar solo and the sound just seems tighter than on the original studio take. It's a nice flashback into the early days of the group. The fourth track "Walter's Walk" was written by Page and Plant and is an outake from "Houses Of The Holy", possibly with later overdubs. It's perhaps Led Zeppelin's rawest song on the album. It opens strong with the guitar followed by a solid drumming. Plant's vocals, although strong, sound like they are in the background. The musicianship is very strong and despite being a good song is probably one of the weakest tracks on the album. The fifth track "Ozone Baby" was written by Page and Plant and is an outtake from "In Through The Out Door". It opens very promisingly, and musically it continues all over the song. Plant's vocals are very good, as always. He sings very well in tune with the music, and its upbeat guitar riffs and fills with a nice solo too. It makes of this song as one of the best tracks on the entire compilation. I probably would have liked to have seen it on "In Through The Out Door". The sixth track "Darlene" was written by Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham, it's also an outtake from "In Through The Out Door". This is another good song with a great beat and where Jones makes a great piano job, once again. Plant's vocals are once more great and the way that it put his vocals back up Page's interesting guitar line, make this song being catchy and nice to hear. The seventh track "Bonzo's Montreux" was written by Bonham and was recorded in 1976 at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland. It's a four minute drum solo taken from one of Bonham's sound checks at Royal Albert Hall. It can be compared to "Moby Dick" in that they are both drum solos, although, aside from that, they are slightly different. It doesn't open and close with Page taking the centre stage and Page added some electronic effects over the solo in the studio. This is a great track and shows for the last time, just how great Bonham was, really. The eighth and last track "Wearing And Tearing" was written by Page and Plant, is another outtake from "In Through The Out Door". This is a musical effort to mirror the growing popularity of the punk movement at the time, and it imitates its style. The chaotic musical atmosphere of the track provides an excellent background for Plant's stylishly sung vocals. However, I've never was a great fan of punk, really. But, it's a fresh song, for the time, and I don't dislike it.

Conclusion: As a true album, "Coda" isn't definitely, to anyone, one of the favourite albums of Led Zeppelin. It was composed of the left over stuff from the band, even if Led Zeppelin's throwaways are better than most groups usually make at their best. This is definitely an album that would be labelled only for hard core fans, even thought that the world is full of them. It's one that every Led Zeppelin's fan should save in the last. It's an album that only a real Led Zeppelin's fan would or could really enjoy, if your musical collection of pre "Coda" isn't complete yet, I wouldn't recommend this album to anyone. Concluding, "Coda" is definitely not the Led Zeppelin's best musical work. It's not a bad album, but not a good start off to listening to Led Zeppelin's music. Fans of the band, like me, will probably enjoy it to an end, as I do. It's non-essential, but as a posthumous work for Bonham's, it's a very emotional album for the group and fans too.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

After "Led Zeppelin IV" as the high point of their meteoric rise to the top of the rock scene, the English band left their comfort zone and opted to venture into new and challenging paths, the end result of which was "Houses of the Holy", their fifth album.

Distanced from the dense guitar riffs and thick instrumental walls of the previous album, Led Zeppelin presents a collage of styles from the very beginning of the album, with Jimmy Page's clean guitars close to progressive sonorities in the hyperactive "The Song Remains the Same", the acoustic folk overflown by the invaluable contribution of John Paul Jones' evocative mellotron in the beautiful ballad "Rain Song", and the Celtic reminiscences of JJR Tolkien's work in the boisterous "Over The Hills And Far Away", a piece sustained by Page's rhythmic acoustic riffs and John Bonham's mastery on percussion.

But the styles that are furthest away from the band's recognisable frontiers come with the American Funky of "The Crunge", a piece that doesn't quite manage to take off, the jubilant and persistent Groove of "Dancing Days", and the unsuspected "rock" reggae of "D'yer Ma'ker", in a clear demonstration of the exploratory concerns of Page and company.

The musical mosaic reserves for its final stretch the experimental progressive exercise that the vaporous and aquatic tension of "No Quarter" proposes with a stupendous work on Jones' atmospheric synthesizers, Robert Plant's voice loaded with effects and Page's saturated riffs in one of the best passages of the album, and "The Ocean", the track that comes closest to the band's hard rock roots.

"Houses of the Holy" is another of Led Zeppelin's great albums, and like "Led Zeppelin III", it has achieved widespread recognition over the years.

3.5/4 stars

The fact that the general reception of "Led Zeppelin III" was not as expected, hit the band's self-esteem and especially Jimmy Page's, who considered it the best album of the three released up to that time. And so the fourth album, "Led Zeppelin IV" (although officially untitled by the musicians' decision), had a meticulous creative and production work to harmonise its intense hard rock vein with folk and blues influences.

The first part of the album is outstanding and there is nothing to be wasted, with pieces with the necessary ingredients to make up timeless anthems of the genre: Page's dense riffs in the lusty "Black Dog" and the incendiary "Rock and Roll", Celtic reminiscences in "The Battle of Evermore" with the contribution of Page on mandolin and English singer Sandy Denny, and the perfect electro-acoustic combination of the immortal "Stairway to Heaven" with the growing instrumental wall built by John Paul Jones and John Bonham and crowned by Page's portentous guitar solo and Plant's heartbreaking phrasing, one of the band's and the genre's flagship songs.

Although in the second half the rushed "Mystic Mountain Hop" marked by Jones' electric piano and the orientalised "Four Sticks" lag a little behind the rest of the pieces, "Going to California", a beautiful acoustic tribute to the Canadian singer Joni Mitchell, and the infallible blues of the parsimonious "When the Levee Breaks" (an adaptation taken from the American singer Memphis Minnie) interpreted in the way that only the British can do, maintain a superlative level and bring the work to a close.

The album of the portrait of the mysterious peasant hunched over with a bundle of branches on his back hanging on a peeling wall, would become one of the cornerstones of the genre and would raise the band to the top of the rock scene.

Excellent

4/4.5 stars

Led Zeppelin were on the crest of the wave with their revolutionary "I" and "II", and hence the expectation for their next release was enormous, with a growing legion of fans eager to receive more voltaic shocks that Jimmy Page's riffs and Plant's powerful and erotic voice brought with them, and, as sometimes happens, the results would not necessarily be the expected ones. And a bit of that happened with "Led Zeppelin III" (1970), an album divided into two large segments with dissimilar orientations.

The first segment approaches (with the exception of "Friends") the hard rock sound of the band, as with Page's guitar riffs, John Bonham's intense percussion and Robert Plant's demonic screams in the combative "Immigrant Song", with the dark ezquizophrenia of "Celebration Day" and the anxious riffs of the lively "Out of the Tiles" and, on the other hand, the deep blues influences of the band, the deep blues influences are also present in the plaintive "Since I've Been Loving You", a very solid instrumental progression (courtesy of the Jones/Bonham duo) that supports Page's masterful guitar ramblings and solos and Plant's heartbroken singing giving his life in every verse, in one of the best moments, if not the best, of the album.

The second segment, nevertheless, shows a significant turnaround, no more thunderous and saturated walls of sound, and the Englishmen's undeniable taste for acoustic nuances takes over: the folk arrangement of "Gallows Pole", a traditional song of probable 18th century Anglo-Saxon origin, the beautiful and melancholic grey tone of "Tangerine", the reflective "That's The Way", attributable to the Page/Plant duo's inspirational sojourn in rural Snowdia (Wales), a place that also lent its name to the percussive agility of the also folk "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp", all tracks that make for an unexpected and unbeatable unplugged set. The haunting "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper", which borrows elements from legendary American blues representatives like Bukka White and Fred Mc Dowell, closes the album with a nod to the band's singer/songwriter friend Roy Harper.

Despite the initial feelings of bewilderment and suspicion generated by the unpredictable drop in revolutions, "Led Zeppelin III" is a great album (including its psychedelic cover art), and with hindsight it has achieved the recognition it deserved.

Very good.

4 stars

Less than a year after their explosive debut, the band led by the Page/Plant duo released "Led Zeppelin II" at the end of 1969, an uninhibited proposal that consolidated them as one of the carriers of the hardest rock sound known up to that time. Conceived and recorded in more than a dozen studios in the United Kingdom and North America in the brief spaces that the promotional concerts of "Led Zeppelin I" and its daily maelstrom allowed, the album was built step by step, and would mean the beginning of a new era for contemporary music.

From the opening chords of Jimmy Page's immortal and distinctive guitar riffs and his subsequent solo on the iconic and powerful "Whole Lotta Love", a track that also features the "freakout section" (so called because of the strange effects obtained from theramin and guitar) in its middle section, the album flows remarkably well, with pieces such as the libidinous "The Lemon Song", which combines blues elements and a Jimmi Hendrix-style improvisation with John Paul Jones on bass to the rhythm of Robert Plant's excesses in his musical duel with Page, and also with recurring acoustic elements in the band's discography such as the delicate "Thank You", Plant's homage to his wife at the time, and the adventurous "Ramble On", a spirited journey into the universe of J.R.R. Tolkien.

And with no respite, Page's saturated, dense riffs return to shape both the mournful "Heartbreaker" (along with "Whole Lotta Love" the album's best) and the bluesy, rough half-time with which the instrumental "Moby Dick" channels John Bonham's profuse, experimental percussion solo, before "Bring It On Home", another bluesy piece featuring Plant's harmonica and the alternation of his portentous voice with Page's guitars, brings the album to a close.

Not exempt from controversy due to the use of songs and fragments of American blues composers like Willie Dixon ("Whole Lotta Love" / "Bring It On Home") and Howlin' Wolf ("The Lemon Song"), "Led Zeppelin II" is undoubtedly a cornerstone and an obligatory reference of hard rock, and a regular resident of any compilation list of the best albums in the history of the genre.

4 stars

The beginning of one of the greatest rock bands in history and largely responsible for such offshoots as heavy metal came at the dawn of 1969 with the release of their eponymous debut album, "Led Zeppelin". Led by singer Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, one of the former guitarists of the legendary Yardbirds, less than 30 hours in the recording studios were enough to shake up the music scene of the time with a proposal that borrowed (and often more than borrowed...) elements from American fifties blues, soul, folk and psychedelia, and put them in a cocktail shaker adding their own unique energy and forcefulness.

That sonic assault is present in all the nuances that Led Zeppelin knew how to make use of, such as the early hard rock in Page's boxed guitar riffs in the fleeting aggressiveness of "Good Times, Bad Times" and "Communication Breakdown", or the spirited folk vein of the excellent "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You", a piece adapted from the singer of the genre Anne Bredon and also covered by Joan Baez, or the intense blues of the superlative "You Shook Me" and the Hammond of John Paul Jones going beyond his role as bass player and "I Can't Quit You Baby" with the Plant/Page duo in a superb voice/guitar duel, both pieces unbeatable adaptations taken from the American bluesman Wilie Dixon.

And the combination of blues and psychedelia of the experimental "Dazed and Confused" (in my opinion the best track on the album and not without some skirmishes with the American singer-songwriter Jack Holmes over royalties), and "How Many More Times" with Page at the helm of the bowed guitar (so called because of the use of the violin bow instead of a pick to achieve that particular sound) and John Bonham in great form as on the whole album, complete the collage of the auspicious debut of the English band.

A new way of understanding and interpreting music was born with Led Zeppelin and their iconic first album is still an obligatory reference today.

4 stars

The concept of the Golden Age . . . ? Is this the notion of the reality from which humanity has fallen? Or, is it the recapitulation of an existence towards which we move?

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

William Blake

In the Western Tradition, we especially revere the Golden Age of Athens, the fifth century, BC. Our cherished values of democracy emerged during this time under Pericles; our understanding of philosophy and the life of the mind originated in the lives and works of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; the genre of tragedy was defined by Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides.

Similarly, we recognize a Golden Age of progressive rock. Somewhere in the mid-sixties, cauldrons of creativity lead to Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, the Yardbirds, Jefferson Airplane, and the Moody Blues.

By 1969, a milieu existed that fostered, most notably, King Crimson's "In the Court of the Crimson King." It also led to the now famous comments of Melody Maker's Tony Wilson on the cover of Yes' eponymous October of 1969 first release:

At the beginning of 1969, I was asked as were all Melody Maker writers to pick two groups who I thought would make in the following year.

One of my choices was Led Zeppelin. A bit obvious perhaps, but then we all like to back a winner occasionally.

The other was Yes.

Thus, "from the beginning," Led Zeppelin has been "Prog Related."

For me, there is a great irony to this relationship. During my high school years in the mid-seventies, there were two "camps" -- the Led Zeppelin camp and the devotees of Yes. Speaking for myself, I was overtly committed to the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Yes, Genesis, and King Crimson "party" to the exclusion of Led Zeppelin. Secretly, I enjoyed Led Zeppelin and even went on to perform "Rock and Roll" in a garage band named "Eclipse."

Fortunately, with the passage of time, I have become far more appreciative of the music of Led Zeppelin. I attempt to base my musical commitments on a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" principle. (To this end, I would like to nominate Joni Mitchell for inclusion on the Progarchives.com site . . . .)

In my current Weltanschauung, John Bonham is to the drums as Jimi Hendrix is to the guitar; John Paul Jones, compositionally and instrumentally, is to Led Zeppelin as Paul McCartney is to the Beatles. On a certain level, Physical Graffiti is to Led Zeppelin as Tales from Topographic Oceans is to Yes.

Why this final comparison? -- "Kashmir" and "In My Time of Dying" in particular.

These two pieces are products of the mind's eye of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham (and in the case of the latter, Blind Willie Johnson). Suitably, one might identify them as "twin peaks" with their imaginative homes in the Himalayas.

I believe a hypothetical reviewer could compose a review of Physical Graffiti based on "Kashmir" alone.

Musically, John Bonham's drums establish a rhythm that is evocative of the attentiveness to breathing behind meditation. Indeed, the drums are the rudder of the ship that journeys through a figurative Kashmir. Page and Jones provide the sails by which the vehicle is propelled. The main musical elements are expressed through orchestration provided by Jones, who, along with Page on the guitar, adopts a stealth approach to the mellotron.

In the wheelhouse are the vocals of Robert Plant. As with most quests for meaning, "Kashmir" begins with an auspicious exposition:

To sit with elders of the gentle/race, this world has seldom seen/They talk of days for which they/sit and wait and all will be revealed . . . .

But, as is commensurate with "standard" mystical experiences, attempts to relate them to others become ineffable:

But not a word I heard could I/relate, the story was quite clear/Oh, oh.

Plant's internal quest displays the rigors of an attempt to relate the landscape of the Imagination. The locale of Kashmir began in Sanskrit as kasmira, a territory bereft of water:

All I see turns to brown, as the/sun burns the ground/And my eyes fill with sand, as I scan this wasted land/Trying to find/where I've been.

"In My Time of Dying" presents a related quest. In my own unoriginal way, I have often remarked that Christianity (and most "axial" spiritualties and systems of belief) reflect an honesty regarding our consciousness of death. Taking the lead from Blind Willie Johnson and Bob Dylan, Jones, Page, Plant and Bonham present this awareness in this towering piece of what I would like to call "Progressive Blues."

There are further insights on "Physical Graffiti" ? Consider the wonderfully sublimated sexuality of "Custard Pie" and "Trampled under Foot" (replete with convincing keyboards by John Paul Jones and potent percussion of John Bonham); the global consciousness of "The Rover" (showcasing a somewhat transformational guitar solo by Jimmy Page); the meditational interiority of "In The Light" (which exemplifies Thelonious Monk's, "If it weren't always night, then we wouldn't need light . . .); and, finally, the closing benediction of "Down By The Seaside" ?

Sing loud for the sunshine, pray/hard for the rain/And show your love for Lady Nature. And she will come back/again/ The people turned away/The people turned away

Thus, in their own inimitable way, Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham have provided us with their own narrative return to the Golden Age . . . .