It has been just over 10 years since I last reviewed a Led Zeppelin album, but we’re back to celebrate the iconic band with this last album of theirs in my collection.
Disc 1807 is…Presence
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Year of Release: 1976
What’s up with the Cover? A perfect nuclear family gathers around the dining room table to fixate on…something.
Little Girl: “Daddy, what is it?”
Dad: “It’s something that daddy brought back from his last trip to Antarctica.”
Mom: “Is it dangerous, dear?”
Dad: “No, not at all. It will change us all in wonderful ways. It whispers the most incredible knowledge to those who serve it.”
Little Boy: “I don’t hear anything.”
Dad: “You will, son. You will.”
Later, three professors from Miskatonic University were convicted of breaking into the house and killing and dismembering the entire family with axes. The object was never found, and the professors went to the electric chair refusing to say where it was, or utter a single word about why they had done what they had done.
But I digress…
How I Came To Know It: I am of a certain age and I am surrounded by fellow music fans so every Led Zeppelin album at some point has been the subject of conversation several times over.
“Presence” is another of those, although I think it was my friend Chris D. who put “Presence” on and convinced me that I had to have it. Up to that point I had ceased my journeying with “Houses of the Holy.”
How It Stacks Up: Led Zeppelin released nine studio albums over their career, but I only have six. This is by design, as “Physical Graffiti”, “In Through the Out Door” and “Coda” have never appealed to me. Sorry not sorry, Zeppelin zealots.
Of the six I do have, “Presence” is a late-breaking treasure. I rank it at #2. As this is my last Zeppelin review, here is a full recap:
- IV: 5 stars (reviewed
at Disc 342)
- Presence: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
- II: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 72)
- I:
4 stars (reviewed at Disc 27)
- Houses of the Holy: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 707)
- III: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 607)
Wow – those are some early reviews. Some even predate my decision to do a “What’s Up With the Cover?” section which I started around Disc 100.
Ratings: 4 stars
A friend (and huge Zeppelin fan) this week remarked to me that Zeppelin was one of those bands where you can listen to it differently every time and still love the experience. This is because Zeppelin is one of those rare bands, like Queen or Blue Oyster Cult, where every member in the band is bringing the top of their game.
“Presence” is a particularly good example of the principle. Its complex arrangements, and the way the songs organically spin into further and further fractals of a song’s structure without ever losing the melody, are the perfect breeding ground for these masters of their craft to show off a little.
The opening track, “Achilles Last Stand” exemplifies this. Over the galloping insistent drumming of John Bonham, Robert Plant warbles and wails away somewhere between stoner messiah and high priest of weird. You always believe Plant because even when his vocals are at their most excessive, he remains fully lost in the song.
Over around and through all of this is the guitar work of Jimmy Page. “Achilles Last Stand” is over ten minutes long but it never gets stale, and a big part of that is Page’s guitar threading its way in and out of the melody and playing more killer solos than most guitarists could write in their lifetimes. His work on “Achilles Last Stand” is mysterious and dreamlike and pulls you into a state of heightened reverie where worlds converge and all things are possible.
And John Paul Jones? He holds everything together, there for you when you want some low notes, and never getting in the way.
“Presence” is the proggiest of my Zeppelin albums, but it also mixes in bluesy riffs more common to their early work. The best of these is “For Your Life” which is a bit more “Zeppelin straight up” and the perfect chaser to the hi-test complexities of “Achilles Last Stand”.
My favourite song among many good ones is “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”. This tune mixes the proggy goodness of “Achilles Last Stand” with the bluesy elements of “For Your Life” and pumps out what we expect from Led Zeppelin – excess and excellence, and a whole lot of musical ideas all jostling one another and making each other better.
This is also my favourite Robert Plant performance of any Zeppelin song (this record or any other). Plant finds a new way to sing the refrain “nobody’s fault but mine” ten different ways, each one greasier than the last. You get the impression that Plant has fully explored the fact that he is at fault here, internalized the crap out of that and, that deep down, he still likes whatever it is that he did. It’s an admission of culpability, yes, but the way he sings it, it’s also a brag.
The only song on the record that didn’t blow me away in some way is the last one. At 9:25 “Tea For One” is just a bit too long for a tune without much to say. It is that aspect of Zeppelin where their excess feels self-serving. Like they invited you over for drinks but didn’t tell you it would just be you sitting in the kitchen while they jammed for three hours.
Without that one blemish this would be a five-star album. As it is, it is still pretty damned amazing. It isn’t the first album that people mention when they talk in hallowed tones about Zeppelin (that is, of course, “IV”) but it oughtta be second.
Best tracks: Achilles Last Stand, For Your Life, Royal Orleans, Nobody’s Fault But Mine
1 comment:
This album was my introduction to Zepplin via the bargain bin at A&B Sound. Still a favourite. But I would say you should give Physical Graffiti a chance ;-)
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