Physical Graffiti (Remastered)

iTunes Review

By the mid-‘70s Led Zeppelin had established themselves as the decade’s megastars. It took nearly two years to follow up Houses of the Holy with this ambitious double album in 1975 that included songs the band had been holding back alongside challenging new material that expanded the band’s musical vocabulary. “Kashmir” is eight and a half minutes of pure middle-eastern tension. “Houses of the Holy,” “Trampled Under Foot,” “Sick Again,”  “Custard Pie” and “The Rover” are prime Jimmy Page derived Led Zeppelin, thick with complex guitar riffs that play against John Bonham’s aggressive sense of timekeeping, making for a band that simultaneously crush and groove. The epic 11-minute “In My Time of Dying” brings the group back to its blues roots with additional funk, while “Boogie With Stu,” “Black Country Woman,” “Down by the Seaside” and the acoustic interlude “Bron-Y-Aur” are among the most relaxed songs in the Zeppelin catalog. “In the Light” is Zeppelin’s idea of a ballad, soft, eerie, soothing with a circuitous instrumental crescendo. A double album that was considered by some to be a slightly bloated affair, Physical Graffiti now stands as a full-angle view of this secretive, enigmatic and legendary band.