Led Zeppelin

The demonic shriek and stampeding guitar that announce this 1970 watershed ("Immigrant Song") not only signals the group's first truly cooperative sound, it's also the bloodcurdling death scream of the relatively well-mannered '60s. No longer is Plant riding between mungo guitar riffs and "Moby Dick"-sized drums, and no longer do those ballsy sounds define the band's strengths. Deep in the LP, "That's the Way" and "Tangerine" prove that the quartet isn't good only for giving big sis the most gratifying night of her life -- they also offer convincing pillow talk the morning after.

I keep nursing this love-hate attitude toward Led Zeppelin. Partly from genuine interest and
mostly indefensible hopes, in part from the conviction that nobody that crass could be all
that bad, I turn to each fresh album expecting -- what? Certainly not subtle echoes of the
monolithic Yardbirds, or authentic blues experiments, or even much variety. Maybe it's
just that they seem like the ultimate Seventies Calf of Gold. The Zep, of all bands... More >

If the great blues guitarists can make their instruments cry out like human voices, it's only fitting that Robert Plant should make his voice galvanize like an electric guitar. I've always approved theoretically of the formula that pits the untiring freak intensity of that voice against Jimmy Page's repeated low-register fuzz riffs, and here they really whip it into shape. Plant is overpowering even when Page goes to his acoustic, as he does to great effect on several surprisingly folky (not to mention folk bluesy) cuts. No drum solos, either. Heavy. (Grade: B+)