Amazon.co.uk Review
As it turned out, Led Zeppelin's infamous 1969 debut album was indicative of the decade to come--one that, fittingly, this band helped define with its decadently exaggerated, bowdlerized blues-rock. In shrieker Robert Plant, ex-Yardbird Jimmy Page found a vocalist who could match his guitar pyrotechnics, and the band pounded out its music with swaggering ferocity and Richter-scale-worthy volume. Pumping up blues classics such as Otis Rush's "I Can't Quit You Baby" and Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Times" into near-cartoon parodies, the band also hinted at things to come with the manic "Communication Breakdown" and the lumbering set stopper "Dazed and Confused".
--Billy Altman
CD Description
Rising from the ashes of his old band the Yardbirds, session guitarist Jimmy Page formed Led Zeppelin, one of the most powerful, influential, and enduring British bands to emerge in the '60s. Despite the presence of such classic thrash-o-ramas as "Good Times Bad Times" and "Communication Breakdown", what set Led Zeppelin apart was the depth and range of their music. Their sound was bathed in the blues, from rootsy covers of Willie Dixon's "You Shook Me" and "I Can't Quit YouBaby", to the crunching rhythm changes of "Dazed And Confused".
Few guitarists before or since possessed Page's sense of pacing and dynamics, as exemplified by the traditionalacoustic folk elements framing the arena gestures on "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", and the raga-flavoured acoustic mystery of "Black Mountain Side". These elements would continue toevolve on subsequent albums, leading to some of Led Zeppelin's greatest moments.