LED ZEPPELIN

This is easily the weakest of the early Zeppelin albums.Still,it's very spontaneous and perfectly enjoyable,as long as you're in for blues.The latters has always been a strong root in the band's compositions,but here that influence is almost too noticeable.I'll take a chance and say this abum is half rock/half blues,and another part that is a mixture of both.Thhere's not a hard rock anthem here and the songs are invidually less memorable then it's sucsessor,but the work as a whole still manages to please,and is certainly not much demanding.

...Maybe this is why I find this to be inferior to what followed it.It is the ideal album to be heard as background music,in pretty much any enviroment.It's not what you'd call hard rock.People claim this was impressive and cool at the time,but the truth is this album didn't aged as well as the others by the band.It's very raw.

The worse track would be Your Time is Gonna Come,which simply contributes to the 'dated' tag of the album. This is a 60's radio pop song.With this exception,everything can be aprecciated in some level.....the songs in this album simply grew on stage.The best example is Black Moutain Side.Though this short lenghted acoustic guitar instrumental is good enough for me here,at the live show it was majorly improved:going eletric and extended with new passages(actually the only link to the studio version would be the main medley and mood).This is actually a classic brittish folk song(a style very present in the album as well),but as everything that had the touch of Led Zep,it's in great shape here.

The album's also opened in a stunning way,with the ground shaking introduction of Good Times Bad Times.I personally don't see much in this track as a whole,but is does have the Led Zeppelin trademark.It is followed by the acoustic Babe I'm Gonna Leave You,a very dark arrangement by the band.

There are two blues numbers in the record,both arrangements of Willie Dixon compostions.You Shook Me is by far the best one,with incredible slide guitar form Jimmy Page.I Cant' Quit You Baby is also in great shape here,though this may sound too generic at times.Dazed and Confused is a great song,here at least.It's a rock song with screaming influences on blues,but in the early seventies it became a 20-minute pshycedelic annoying when played alive,where the awlfull idea of throwing in violins in the middle of the song would be presented to audiences all around the globe on every show.

Communication Breakdown is a very nice,straight rock n' roll song,one that may have caused a very good impression at brittish youth at the time.Now it doens't sound so heavy(as people said these numbers were)as it was did,but it's clear that this was a very strong live number.

How Many More Times is a nice blues rock tune,and closing the album,it reforces the impressin of a massive blues influence on the band.This album is nothing special by itself,but it's a preview of what was to be developed and enhanced by Led Zeppelin as soon as the second album came out,only a few months later.And they never looked back.