Led Zeppelin (Remastered)

iTunes Review

With Led Zeppelin’s legacy so firmly etched in the hardest rock, it’s odd to think there was a time when their music was more a mystery than the accepted gold standard. Formed by session guitarist Jimmy Page after the dissolution of the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin were initially intended to be a loud, heavy blues-rock group much in kindred spirit with his other former Yardbirds’ guitarists’ bands, Cream and the Jeff Beck Group. Despite the forceful pummel of drummer John Bonham and the hyperbolic screams of lead singer Robert Plant, Page often played subtly with careful texture. His interest in English folk music tradition can be heard on “Black Mountain Side” and the quieter spaces of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and “Your Time Is Gonna Come.” But Page also understood the tenor of the era and with guitarists like Ten Years After’s Alvin Lee and, of course, Jimi Hendrix garnering audiences, Page knew to go for the jugular and fired off the riffs of “Good Times, Bad Times” and “Communication Breakdown” with what, in retrospect, are the seeds of punk rancor. The blues numbers twist towards psychedelia (“Dazed and Confused”) and pure overload (“You Shook Me,” “I Can’t Quit You Babe”). The band was only getting started.