"The Song Remains The Same… and it’s as thrilling as ever."
Led Zeppelin’s fifth album, Houses Of The Holy, gets the standard, deluxe and super-deluxe remaster treatment.
After the solid blues rock that had started to reflect Robert Plant’s folksy cosmic spirituality on their previous album, Led Zeppelin IV, this album finds the band straying from the template and moving in much more diverse and somewhat unpredictable tangents. After hitting the mainstream with IV this album saw the band broadening their palette of sounds and becoming a little more complex in their thinking.
The companion disc sees the album, with the exception of the irresistible D’yer Mak’er, represented through of a collection of previously unreleased rough mixes and demos. Only hardcore fans will thrill to the idea of listening to Rain Song without the piano or taking in an instrumental version of Over The Hills And Far Away. Labelled as rough mixes there’s less spit and polish than the versions we have come to know and love. The companion disc may not feel like a generous offering but it does wash over like a more relaxed take on the original album. It’s kind of hard to believe that the band got so funky on The Crunge and the wild guitar riffage on Dancing Days and The Ocean is as fresh as it was 41 years ago.
It’s unsurprising that young bands like Royal Blood should continue to take inspiration from these vintage sounds. The Song Remains The Same… and it’s as thrilling as ever.
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