PHYSICAL GRAFFITI

One of the most consistently excellent double albums, the standard only drops slightly on the last track. From the awesome riff of the slightly risque "Custard Pie" onwards, this is one of the Zep's finest efforts.

The first 2 sides (talking vinyl for a moment) contain the rockier numbers, notably the Eastern-flavoured "Kashmir" and the astonishing performance that is "In My Time of Dying". Side 3 contains the gentler numbers - "In The Light", the acoustic guitar solo "Bron-y-aur", "Down by the Seaside" and the wonderful "Ten Years Gone". Side 4 contains the "poppier" short songs. "Night Flight" is a good opener, "Boogie with Stu" features the eponymous Ian Stewart on piano and the song is an old Richie Valens number which can be heard in his biopic. "Black Country Woman" features an aeroplane ("Nah, leave it") as it was recorded outdoors and frankly "Sick Again" is a bit of a dirge, ending the album on a downward note.

As Sean Trane has pointed out, some of the songs on this album were left off previous albums (we even have the title track of their previous album) but I don't believe it suffers for that. You wouldn't know they were "rejects" from hearing the album.

The album was delayed on its release due to problems with the cover - all the band would say when asked about the delay was that they were having problems with the windows. Of course with the CD release you don't even get the cut out windows, and on my CD someone idiot even cut the cough off the end of "In My Time of Dying", so beware of this. Normally a no-brainer as a 5 star album, but only 3 stars on ProgArchives.