Physical Graffiti (2CD) [Original recording remastered]

High Points on this recording include Houses of The Holy, Down By The Seaside, Night Flight, and The Wanton Song. Great riffs on that last tune and some good variations in the melody as well. Night Flight features some cool drumming by Bonham.

Boogie With Stu and Black Country Woman are decent numbers but not first rate material. The music is cool but the lyrics are kind of pedestrian. At least these songs add a little variety to this disc.

Throw in the cool cover design and I'll round up this recording to three stars.

By 1975, Led Zeppelin had already proven themselves to be gods of rock and roll. What the Beatles were to the sixties, Led Zeppelin was to the seventies. The band had already released five albums, each one of which being excellent. Already they had experimented with a number of sounds, sometimes with excellent results, sometimes with, well, less than stellar results. The band released its sixth album, entitled Physical Graffiti, in 1975. How do Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones measure up this time around? Read on for my review of the album.

This is Led Zeppelin's most lengthy album, and the only one of their studio albums that is long enough to merit a two compact disc release. Many people compare Led Zeppelin to the Beatles, and perhaps this album is one of the greatest parallels between the two bands - it is VERY similar to the Beatles' self-titled "White" album in a number of ways. The first disc features seven hard-rocking instant classics that have since become Led Zepplin fan favorites. Is it humanly possible NOT to enjoy the classic hard rock stylings of Custard Pie and the Rover? Perhaps one of the most interesting songs of all is In My Time Of Dying, a song that Bob Dylan originally recorded on his 1962 self-titled debut album. The band brings new life into an already excellent song - something they proved they could do beautifully on their own debut album. Houses Of The Holy gives us more of that blues-flavored hard rock that the band served up so heavily in the old days, and does a damn good job of it. Trampled Under Foot is one of the band's most memorable rockers of all, mostly due to its catchy beat and instrument stylings. But the most memorable track of all on the album, is by far, the legendary Kashmir. The band's combination of hard rock with a somewhat middle-eastern sound makes for a damn fine tune. The first disc was nothing but masterpieces, no questions asked. Sadly, the second disc isn't fortunate enough to be so lucky. The second disc has many excellent songs, but there are also many of them that fall below the band's usual standard. This is one of the interesting parallels with the Beatles' self-titled album - they are both dual-disc, "hit or miss" albums that would have been better off being a single-disc album of nothing but masterpieces than the dual-disc mixture of masterpieces and fillers. Still, even though many of those songs fall below Led Zeppelin's usual standard, they are still VERY good when compared with other bands of any era. This is NOT a bad album by any means - in fact, it's very good - just not Zeppelin's best.

Like the other Led Zeppelin albums (as of July 19, 2004), the version of the album that is readily available in stores is the most recent remastered version. Sadly though, due to Zeppelin's massive popularity, many stores will jack up the price of their albums. Fortunately, the band offers an alternative to wasting too much money - the Complete Studio Recordings box set. I urge you to buy this set and NOT to buy the albums separately - otherwise you're going to get ripped off - in particular on this album, because it is dual-disc.

Physical Graffiti isn't quite the masterpiece that some Zeppelin fans hold it out to be, but it is still a damn fine album (there is no such thing as a bad Led Zeppelin studio album.) If you're new to the band, DO NOT buy a hits compilation - none of them can do the band justice. Also, don't start with this album. While good, it's bound to give you the wrong impression about the band. As a final verdict, I would have to recommend this album only to die-hard fans of the band due to the dual-disc nature jacking the price up. New fans, I suggest either shelling out the cash and getting the Complete Studio Recordings box set, or starting with the band's untitled fourth album. To put it simply, Physical Graffiti IS a damn good album, it's just not the best starting place.