HOUSES OF THE HOLY

Houses of the Holy just might be my favourite Led Zeppelin album (along with Physical Graffiti). Still it is far from being perfect. In fact, to me this album is strangely divided in two sections: There are the classic songs, and then there are the bad apples. There's little middle ground to be found here.

The album starts out fantastically with The Song Remains the Same, which is energetic and has great playing from Page. The real highlight of the album for me is The Rain Song though, what a wonderfully arranged piece of music, so elegant and light. For me it conjures up the image of a gentle, warm autumn rain, with the leaves all yellow, red and brown. Over the HIll and Far Away is another classic if you ask me, I love the quiet acoustic intro segueing into the electric main section. Other classics are No Quarter and The Ocean. Especially the former is particularly gloomy and dark in a very good way.

Dancing Days is an ok song, it's nothing special though, but a filler nonetheless. The really bad apples here are The Crunge and D'yer Mak'er. I surely can listen to them, but they are really average songs and failed experiments.

4 stars.