LED ZEPPELIN III

A beautiful rock album, which is getting better as it's getting older... And no, let me say it right away - it's not a masterpiece, but it approached that status as close as possible for a four-star album.

An acoustic album, my arse. It's true, the majority of the tracks here are (very) acoustic-oriented, but few tracks are whipping your ears with a raging electric monster, balancing this album well. I never had an impression this album is very "acoustic".

However, that is not very relevant, really, the artistic value of the songs is what counts, ergo:

The pile of electrics

Electric songs are not eclectic. But they are awfully good, starting from opening "Immigrant Song" with dumb, simple, and yet so catchy guitar riff, to the typical Zeppelin electric journey in "Celebration Day" (with excellent bass line with jazzy influence, ah, John Paul, you hidden jazzer, you!), to the brilliant, rumbling "Out On The Tiles" with (again) catchy riff. And let's not forget "Since I've Been Loving You", band's ultimate blues effort, but frankly, it's a little bit overrated in my opinion, or at least overplayed. Don't ask me why; when I was at the peak of my "blues is the best" period, I never really appreciated this one, save for the excellent musicianship.

The pile of acoustics

What? Friends? How? Sounds simple, but actually, it isn't...add a teaspoon of Eastern influences (India) and a few nasty sounds of unknown origin (how on Earth did Page produced them?).

And now, three in a row. "Gallows Pole", "Tangerine" and "That's The Way" are all in my top 10 Led Zeppelin tracks list. "Gallows Pole" contains best banjo played in rock (country-rock) music ever, "Tangerine's" magical acoustic chords are just cuddly, "That's The Way" represents Plant as a top notch lyricist, and musically is equally good, dreamy, full of reverb and gentle passages.

The last two songs are delving deeper into the blues roots and the last song is simultaneously delving to the sound experimentation as well: "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp" proves that frenetic, flashy and overall good performance doesn't have to be necessary in the electric-song wrapping, not even from the band world renowned as inventors of heavy metal. If you can imagine the best possible (and, ehm, progressive) sing-along-around-the-fire song, you'll get the idea. The album's closer is, as I said, a "blues meets sound effects" effort. I'm wondering what they wanted to say with this one; it's a little bit of a missed idea, but it's worth confronting with your brain cells; it's certainly the scariest acoustic blues piece that I've ever heard.

..............

This album is an essence of "four and a half stars" term. A couple of weaker (but not bad) moments scattered here and there, but in general, this album aged very well. The wrinkles are getting prettier every day. To be listened to, enjoyed, and learned from.

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