PHYSICAL GRAFFITI

Physical Graffity is a strange beast. Back in the days, I didn't like this album. I missed the blues and I disliked the bare rock sound of most tracks. But given the endless soliloquies of praise this album gets I felt I had to give it another chance.

At its best moments Led Zeppelin sound somewhat re-born after the lackluster performance they laid down on Houses of The Holy. They're rocking and pumping and Plant almost sounds testosterone charged as of old. A lot of the song-writing is very good. Kashmir is the obvious and well-known highlight and also Trampled Under Foot and The Rover usually feature on Zeppelin compilations. A couple of songs like Custard Pie and Houses of the Holy sound a lot like the Rolling Stones.

But the year was 1976 and I guess you weren't considered a serious artist if you hadn't released an 80 minute double album yet. And clearly Zeppelin had to overstretch their creative limit in order to get to 80 minutes. The abundance of filler material drags down the overall quality. The closing track is strong, but the 20 minutes that precede contain too much filler.

Of course it's easy to skip the filler and make a decent 40 minute playlist with the best tracks. I just wished Zeppelin had done that themselves when they released it.