Label: Atlantic Records (US), SD 19128
Style: Hard Rock
Country: London, England
Time: 42:53
Format: Flac Tracks 24/96 kHz
Size: 937 Mb
I
keep nursing this love-hate attitude toward Led Zeppelin. Partly from
genuine interest and mostly indefensible hopes, in part from the
conviction that nobody that crass could be all that bad, I turn to each
fresh album expecting — what? Certainly not subtle echoes of the
monolithic Yardbirds, or authentic blues experiments, or even much
variety. Maybe it’s just that they seem like the ultimate Seventies Calf
of Gold.
The Zep, of all bands surviving, are today — their music is
as ephemeral as Marvel comix, and as vivid as an old Technicolor
cartoon. It doesn’t challenge anybody’s intelligence or sensibilities,
relying instead on a pat visceral impact that will insure absolute
stardom for many moons to come. Their albums refine the crude public
tools of all dull white blues bands into something awesome in its very
insensitive grossness, like a Cecil B. DeMille epic. If I rely so much
on visual and filmic metaphors, it’s because they apply so exactly. I’ve
never made a Zep show, but friends (most of them the type, admittedly,
who will listen- to anything so long’s it’s loud and they’re destroyed)
describe a thunderous, near-undifferentiated tidal wave of sound that
doesn’t engross but envelops to snuff any possible distraction.
Their
third album deviates little from the track laid by the first two, even
though they go acoustic on several numbers. Most of the acoustic stuff
sounds like standard Zep graded down decibelwise, and the heavy blitzes
could’ve been outtakes from Zeppelin II. In fact, when I first heard the
album my main impression was the consistent anonymity of most of the
songs — no one could mistake the band, but no gimmicks stand out with
any special outrageousness, as did the great, gleefully absurd
Orangutang Plant-cum-wheezing guitar freak-out that made “Whole Lotta
Love” such a pulp classic. “Immigrant Song” comes closest, with its
bulldozer rhythms and Bobby Plant’s double-tracked wordless vocal
croonings echoing behind the main vocal like some cannibal chorus
wailing in the infernal light of a savage fertility rite. What’s great
about it, though, the Zep’s special genius, is that the whole effect is
so utterly two-dimensional and unreal. You could play it, as I did,
while watching a pagan priestess performing the ritual dance of Ka
before the flaming sacrificial altar in Fire Maidens of Outer Space with
the TV sound turned off. And believe me, the Zep made my blood throb to
those jungle rhythms even more frenziedly.
Unfortunately, precious
little of Z III‘s remaining hysteria is as useful or as effectively
melodramatic. “Friends” has a fine bitter acoustic lead, but gives
itself over almost entirely to monotonously shrill Plant
breast-beatings. Rob, give a listen to Iggy Stooge.
“Celebration Day”
and “Out On the Tiles” are production-line Zep churners that no fan
could fault and no one else could even hear without an effort. “Since
I’ve Been Loving You” represents the obligatory slow and lethally dull
seven-minute blues jam, and “Hats Off to (Roy) Harper” dedicates a
bottleneck-&-shimmering echo-chamber vocal salad to a British
minstrel who, I am told, leans more towards the music-hall tradition.
Much
of the rest, after a couple of listenings to distinguish between songs,
is not bad at all, because the disc Zeppelin are at least creative
enough to apply an occasional pleasing fillip to their uninspiring
material, and professional enough to keep all their recorded work
relatively clean and clear — you can hear all the parts, which is more
than you can say for many of their peers.
Finally I must mention a
song called “That’s the Way,” because it’s the first song they’ve ever
done that has truly moved me. Son of a gun, it’s beautiful. Above a very
simple and appropriately everyday acoustic riff, Plant sings a touching
picture of two youngsters who can no longer be playmates because one’s
parents and peers disapprove of the other because of long hair and being
generally from “the dark side of town.” The vocal is restrained for
once — in fact, Plant’s intonations are as plaintively gentle as some of
the Rascals’ best ballad work — and a perfectly modulated electronic
drone wails in the background like melancholy harbor scows as the words
fall soft as sooty snow: “And yesterday I saw you standing by the river /
I read those tears that filled your eyes / And all the fish that lay in
dirty water dying / Had they got you hypnotized?” Beautiful, and
strangely enough Zep. As sage Berry declared eons ago, it shore goes to
show you never can tell.
(rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/led-zeppelin-iii-112284/) Review by Lester Bangs. November 26, 1970
Lester Bangs reporter:
Leslie
Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an
American music journalist. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone
magazines, and was a leading influence in rock music criticism. The
music critic Jim DeRogatis called him "America's greatest rock critic".
01. A1 Immigrant Song (02:24)
02. A2 Friends (03:53)
03. A3 Celebration Day (03:28)
04. A4 Since I've Been Loving You (07:23)
05. A5 Out On The Tiles (04:03)
06. B1 Gallows Pole (04:55)
07. B2 Tangerine (03:09)
08. B3 That's The Way (05:36)
09. B4 Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (04:22)
10. B5 Hats Off To (Roy) Harper (03:36)
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