PRESENCE

Recorded at a breakneck pace following Robert Plant's legendary car accident - presumably to reassure fans and record company alike that Zeppelin were still a going concern - Presence is a slapdash muddle of an album that is still a notch above the overindulgent tedium of Physical Graffiti thanks to the presence of Achilles' Last Stand, one of the the band's best epics that features proto-speed metal rhythms some of the heaviest guitar playing Jimmy Page would display. But one decent song can't save an otherwise pedestrian album.

To be fair to the thing, it was rather the victim of poor timing and a misjudgement of artistic direction on the part of the band. In principle, shifting focus away from experimental material to heavier, rockier numbers was a sound plan; in practice, the rock numbers collected on Presence pale in comparison to the best of Zeppelin's earlier material. And, of course, mere weeks later Judas Priest would enter the studio to record Sad Wings of Destiny, setting a new bar for metal which Zeppelin couldn't simply compete with.