LED ZEPPELIN III

"Led Zeppelin III" is the third studio album of Led Zeppelin that was released in 1970. It represents a maturity on the band's music with great emphasis on the folk and acoustic sounds. Although acoustic songs are featured on its two predecessors, this an album that is widely acknowledge for showing that Led Zeppelin was more than a merely conventional rock band and they could go out into a new musical territory. That surprised many fans and critics, and upon its release the album received rather indifferent reviews. However, "Led Zeppelin III" is praised and acknowledge as representing an important milestone in their career. It's generally considered one of their best and most fine works.

"Led Zeppelin III" has ten tracks. The first track "Immigrant Song" written by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page is one of Led Zeppelin's few single releases, having been released against the band's wishes. It's a very short track and the only one with a very fast tempo beat. This is a great opener to the album that introduces and help to create the unique and great musical atmosphere of the album. The second track "Friends" written by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page is one of the few Led Zeppelin's songs that include strings, arranged by John Paul Jones. It represents the beginning of the acoustic musical experience on the album. This is a great acoustic song with a brilliant acoustic guitar work and a soft and nice delicate drumming. It has also great synthesizer and vocal works. The third track "Celebration Day" written by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones is a more traditional Led Zeppelin song. It's a very good solid rock song with a great and nice riff and an excellent bass line. Despite being a very good track I think it's a little bit lost and out of the place on the album. Sincerely, I really think that it belongs more to "Led Zeppelin II". The fourth track "Since I've Been Loving You" written by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones is the lengthiest track on the album and is an epic blues song with great feelings and is very emotional too, and where Robert Plant sings wonderfully and unforgettably. Who usually read my reviews knows that I'm not a great blues' fan. However, this is a perfect song, one of the best blues' numbers I've ever heard, with an incredible musicianship between all band's members. The fifth track "Out On The Tiles" written by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Bonham is one of the most aggressive songs in the band's catalogue and closes the first side of the LP, the most heavy part of the all album. This is another great rock song with good guitar riff, nice bass line, excellent heavy drumming and strong vocals. The sixth track "Gallows Pole" is a traditional song arranged by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. It's an acoustic song with a simple guitar rhythm and where the mandolin, the electric bass guitar, the banjo and the drums are all added to it. This is a great song where the instrumentation builds up to a crescendo, increasing in tempo as the song progresses. The seventh track "Tangerine" written by Jimmy Page, has its origins in an old The Yardbirds' song, like several Led Zeppelin's songs written by Jimmy Page. The song begins with a false start, after which Page pauses to set the right tempo. It's a beautiful song in which during its length, the song continually changes tempo. The eighth track "That's The Way" written by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page is another acoustic song and like several other tracks on the album. It became as one of the most gentle and mellow compositions in Led Zeppelin's catalogue. As the previous song, this is one of the most calm and beautiful songs ever made by the band. The ninth track "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" written by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones was named with that name because Bron-Y-Aur was the house in Gwynedd, Wales, where the band wrote much of the stuff of "Led Zeppelin III". This is another great and fabulous song that despite being an acoustic song its rhythm is completely frenetic, complex and electrify. The tenth and last track "Hats Off To (Roy) Harper" is a medley of fragments of several blues songs and lyrics written by some blues veterans. The song is a tribute to the contemporary folk singer and very close friend of the band, Roy Harper. This is a very weird song, which, in my opinion, the collage of the excerpts of the old blues' songs, doesn't work very well. It represents the weakest track on the album.

Conclusion: "Led Zeppelin III" remains as one of the best and most fine musical works released by the band. It shows, as I mentioned above, that Led Zeppelin was much more than a traditional rock and blues band. With this album, Led Zeppelin proves that they were one of the best and most complete rock bands in the world. It also proves that Robert Plant was one of the best singers in his era, that Jimmy Page was much more than a great hard rock guitarist, that John Bonham was a complete versatile drummer that could adapted to any kind of music, and finally, that John Paul Jones, behind an excellent bassist, could be a complete and great player able to perform any kind of music instruments. While not the towering achievement of its brothers in numerology, "Led Zeppelin III" remains one of the great albums in rock history, significant for its role in establishing the legend of this band that would become a fact with "Led Zeppelin IV".

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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