{"id":11846,"date":"1976-03-31T00:00:27","date_gmt":"1976-03-31T00:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=11846"},"modified":"2013-06-01T15:01:39","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T15:01:39","slug":"album-review-led-zeppelin-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-led-zeppelin-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"LED ZEPPELIN – Presence (1976) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

LED ZEPPELIN
Presence<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSwan Song (1976)<\/span>
Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Led Zeppelin<\/a> resorted back to the 45 minutes or so formula for their seventh album, Presence<\/em>. It\u2019s probably my least listened to Zeppelin platter, although it boasts a handful of monsters including album opener \u2018Achilles Last Stand\u2019, a ten-minute behemoth featuring a driving riff and locomotive drum and bass attack.<\/p>\n

\u2018Achilles Last Stand\u2019 is a straight up rocker and certainly the heaviest cut on the record. Of the six Jimmy Page \/ Robert Plant compositions the album offers, this is certainly the most direct; a raw, stripped-down mini-masterpiece featuring seemingly ahead of its time dynamics and that killer, never-changing backbone of a chug.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the band keep the pace with the six-and-a-half minute \u2018For Your Life\u2019, a technical groover that exists on a familiar structure of Page\u2019s jarring guitar, John Paul Jones\u2019 dominant bass and John Bonham\u2019s jerking drum.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the brief \u2018Royal Orleans\u2019 is the only cut on the record attributed to all four members. Compared to the two previous tracks it\u2019s a mere snippet driven by another cool guitar strut that is brisk with funky sprinkles, but it pales in comparison to the epic \u2018Nobody\u2019s Fault But Mine\u2019 which enters the airwaves on a cool Page solo and Plant swoon before the majestic drums charge from the speakers. It\u2019s hard to believe that the critics thought that Led Zeppelin was washed up, the band simply opting for a more stripped down assault on the senses.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, Presence<\/em> lacks the monster hit or eye catcher of previous releases. \u2018Candy Store Rock\u2019 is a boogie anthem delivered with the usual struttin\u2019 aplomb, but alongside \u2018Hots On For Nowhere\u2019 it doesn\u2019t provide the greatest penultimate experience for the album. Neither track is a behemoth; the latter simply funks hard but lacks the mystical majesty of Zeppelin\u2019s classics. If anything it\u2019s merely a bubble-gum rock head-nodder boosted by Plant\u2019s infectious \u201cLa la la la\u201d<\/em>\u2019s.<\/p>\n

And then we\u2019re almost done, left to ponder on the ten-minute glam strutter that is \u2018Tea For Two\u2019, which sets out its stall as a mid-paced groover before plummeting into the depths of bluesy thought. Page takes over proceedings, his axe merely whimpering over a mournful Bonham plod as Plant wails within the sea of melancholy. Suddenly I\u2019m lost at sea, hoping to catch a glimpse of those familiar hard rock shores, but it never comes. \u2018Tea For Two\u2019 could have so easily been a meandering instrumental, a rambling self-indulgent pile of blues-drenched vomit in reality.<\/p>\n

So, despite a handful of very good songs, Presence<\/em> fails to live up to its title, none of the tracks really gripping the listener or staining the ears. Choppy at best, Led Zeppelin\u2019s seventh record was very much a sign of the times, the band lost in a haze of half-hinted tragedy as Robert Plant continued to recover from injuries sustained in a car accident in August 1975. <\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LED ZEPPELINPresence Swan Song (1976)Rating: 7\/10 Led Zeppelin resorted back to the 45 minutes or so formula for their seventh album, Presence. It\u2019s probably my least listened to Zeppelin platter, although it boasts a handful of monsters including album opener \u2018Achilles Last Stand\u2019, a ten-minute behemoth featuring a driving riff and locomotive drum and bass […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[587],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-led-zeppelin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11846"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12127,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11846\/revisions\/12127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}