Led Zeppelin - Presence

HOLY PRESENCE!!!

This is a truly amazing album! Passionately played, Presence rocks from start to finish and it means it. From the opening guitar that fades in into the beast that is Achilles Last Stand to the marvellous melancholy of Tea For One, this is a complete winner. Actually those two songs plus For Your Life and Nobody's Fault But Mine are just fantastic pieces of music. The album manages to capture a rawness that was absent on their previous albums save say for the very first one when they just went for it and had the whole thing done in two weeks. It also does carry a hard funky feel that only those four mighty musicians could throw - the perfect follow-up to Physical Graffiti. I regard Led Zeppelin's music as a sort of holy presence and it was very much alive when they went to Munich's Musicland Studios in Nov/Dec 1975 to record the album that came to be known as PRESENCE. November 5, 2008

The true Zeppelin swan song

In Through The Out Door and Coda were abberations. ITTOD was JPJ's album and I guess that under the circumstances he did the best he could. Coda was an outtakes album which is not bad but not a legacy type of album. Presence on the other hand is Zeppelin at their hardest and tightest, an awesome album bracketed by two of the greatest tracks they ever laid down - Achilles Last Stand and Tea For One. I first heard ALS when Presence was first released and thought it was the greatest thing Zeppelin had ever produced. I still think it's one of their top 5 tracks but on a par with it, for me, is Tea For One. I bracket it with In My Time Of Dying as two of the greatest blues tracks ever made. JP's playing on this track is blistering. God knows how many guitar tracks he laid down but it sounds like 3 or 4 separate guitar tracks and each compliments all the others wonderfully. Having listened to the remastered CD I can finally appreciate just what a phenomenal job Bonzo does on this album in fact, for me, Bonzo's drumming is what really makes this album special. Listening to it on a dodgy cassette player all those years ago I couldn't appreciate what a job he did but if ITTOD and Coda showed didn't really give Bonzo a chance to shine, Presence does in spades. Percy might have recorded all his vocals in a wheelchair but you could swear he was wearing and tearing his stuff when he recorded this, Plant had his voice back and this album is a testament to that. JPJ does a great job of supporting JP and Bonzo without ever dominating and James Patrick Page just peels the paint off the wall with a masterclass in rock and blues guitar. It's a shame that many can't hear beyond Achilles Last Stand on this album but I really think that years ahead, this album will be regarded as the classic it truly is. If JP, JPJ, J(Jason)B and Percy ever do create new music, I hope to hell it sounds like this - tight but loose. September 25, 2008

The most underrated Zeppelin album, and their last great one

Released in 1976, Led Zeppelin's 7th album has always been unfairly overlooked by fans and critics who'd expected another epic along the lines of their previous album "Physical Graffiti". And were seemingly disappointed by the even stranger than normal artwork (what was that black thing anyway?) and just seven songs. It was if the band had taken a "ho-hum" approach to their albums. They knew ANYTHING they released was guaranteed to sell a million copies in its first week. Seven songs? Who did they think they were, Steely Dan? Add to this the rise of punk rockers in England who regarded Zeppelin as boring old farts whose demise couldn't come fast enough. Relations within the band were tense as well. Robert Plant had been in a near fatal car wreck in Greece and practically recorded the entire album in a wheelchair. Jimmy Page and John Bonham's dalliances with heroin had turned into full-fledged addictions. And John Paul Jones felt his role in the band was merely taken for granted. So the band was in an unfamiliar position; backs to the wall and needing a strong album to prove they still had "it" in them. To do this, the band decamped to Munich's Musicland Studios and pushed themselves to deliver a new album in (for them) a record time of 2 weeks, as the Rolling Stones were due to arrive and start their next album. Legend has it that Page completed all the guitar overdubs in one night; then asked Mick Jagger for one extra day of studio time. Jagger agreed, and when he arrived Page proudly told him the album was finished;
Jagger: "Oh, you got the basic tracks done?"
Page: "No, the ENTIRE album is done."
This was at a time when the Stones needed two weeks to record ONE song.
"Presence" is a different album because of this. The proto-hippie acoustic tunes of the past are nowhere to be found here. This is a much tougher sounding and uncompromising album as a result starting with the opener. "Achilles Last Stand" is probably the longest song they've ever recorded at nearly 11 minutes of soaring vocals, galloping guitars, rock bottom bass and machine gun drums. "Nobody's Fault But Mine" is without a doubt one of the best songs they ever recorded with it's heavily phased guitar intro and Plant's wail of a deal he wants out of (Drugs or the Devil?) before it slams into a thunderous groove that only stops for a second as Plant quietly laments; "nobody's fault but mine". Though they were never a singles band, "Candy Store Rock" really could've been a hit single as the band do their best impression of a Sun Records rockabilly act. "Hots on for Nowhere" is Robert Plant strutting his stuff vocally while John Bonham lays down a shuffle straight out of the James Brown school of drumming. I have to say that the sound quality of "Tea for One" is remarkable and harkens back to the smooth drum sound the band had on its early albums before it drops into a slow melancholy blues that seems to say that the band was tired and that bad times were coming soon. Those bad times were the '77 tour that saw fan riots, hard drugs everywhere, and the death of Plant's son. Jimmy Page seems to have pulled out all the stops here and used every guitar trick he could think of. IMO, If Zeppelin had stopped here, their place in rock history would've been solid. If any album in the Zeppelin catalog could be called a letdown, it was "In Through the Out Door".
September 6, 2008

Led Zeppelin Presence

Presence

This is a no brainer for Zeppelin fans, you must have this! This album was all page. With Robert Plant in a wheel chair from his crash, Jimmy Page put this album together in only 16 days. The riffs are unforgetable and with pure Led Zeppelin energy. August 22, 2008

Presence (***1/2)

Led Zeppelin-Presence (***1/2)

I usually go through phases with Zeppelin. Long periods of not wanting to hear them but still giving them credit for being one of the greatest bands of all time, and then short (make that extremely short) periods of time where I listen to Led Zeppelin so much I get really sick of them. This just might be the only album in the bands canon that doesn't follow into either of those categories. I think that is due to the fact that I truly believe both Jimmy Page and John Bonham are at their all time best here, this album contains two absolute Zeppelin classics, and what I consider to be their all time best, and the fact that is just an average album which I only pull out once in a blue moon.

Firstly Robert Plant is great when he sticks to one note and doesn't' vary in range. It bothers me to no end when he tries to be a vocal acrobat. The songs that are good here are mainly when he stays to one thing, the ones that are not, are the ones that he makes his voice go through everything he did on Houses Of The Holy all over again. As I said before Page kills on this album. His slide playing is nothing to bark at, simply the best. His lead playing on songs like 'For Your Life' and 'Hots On For Nowhere' is some of his best. Bonham just plays solid fills throughout the album and great rhythm all over. John Paul Jones completely owns as always, especially on 'For Your Life.'

'Achilles Last Stand' is to me without competition Led Zeppelins very best song. Better than 'Stairway..' 'Whole Lotta Love' 'Black Dog' or anything else you through out. The entire band is at their top and kill the track. With ten minutes length it manages to not get boring, which is unusual for Zepp. 'Nobody's Fault But Mine' is not the bands best, but it is my favorite Zepp song. Killer guitar from Page and his lyrics are perfect for Plants pipes to let rip over. It is a stellar tune! 'For Your Life' is a solid rock n' roller. 'Royal Orleans' was a nice idea, and has a good feel as well as some great guitar and bass, but doesn't fully deliver like it should. 'Candy Store Rock' feels nice but seems unfinished, as does 'Tea For One' which is strange because of it's nearly ten minute length. 'Hots On For Nowhere' is a odd one. It isn't likable by any standards, and yet it is not awful by any standards either.

I will say this though. Presence has the best production out of the whole lot of their records, hands down!

I always felt like Led Zeppelin was capable of so much more than what they did which always left me feeling cold and let down. Presence did just what I thought it would do. It is a solid rock n' roll album, nothing more, nothing less, and that is okay. August 9, 2008

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