{"id":11858,"date":"1982-11-19T00:00:57","date_gmt":"1982-11-19T00:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=11858"},"modified":"2013-06-01T15:02:36","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T15:02:36","slug":"album-review-led-zeppelin-coda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-led-zeppelin-coda\/","title":{"rendered":"LED ZEPPELIN – Coda (1982) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

LED ZEPPELIN
Coda<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSwan Song (1982)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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With In Through The Out Door<\/em><\/a> (1979) being the last Led Zeppelin<\/a> album proper \u2013 the band dissolving in 1980 after the death of drummer John Bonham \u2013 1982\u2019s Coda<\/em> is merely 33 minutes of outtakes, unreleased tracks etc., spanning the band\u2019s 12-year career.<\/p>\n

Coda<\/em>, despite showcasing a batch of decent songs, was released to fulfil a contractual obligation, and could best be described as a scatty affair that features a couple of edited live cover versions from 1970; a rendition of the Willie Dixon penned Otis Rush song \u2018I Can\u2019t Quit You Baby\u2019, and the shuffling funk opener \u2018We\u2019re Gonna Groove\u2019, which is Zeppelin\u2019s interpretation of the Ben E. King \/ James A. Bethea composed \u2018Groovin\u2019\u2019 \u2013 complete with Jimmy Page\u2019s jangly guitar strut.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, \u2018Poor Tom\u2019 is a brisk ditty, while my favourite track, \u2018Walter\u2019s Walk\u2019, features an avalanche of John Bonham drums and Robert Plant\u2019s orgasmic yawns over a swaggering Page guitar lick that once again exudes funk.<\/p>\n

For the most part however, Coda<\/em> is a patchy affair at best; a record of peaks and troughs for the collectors. For example, \u2018Ozone Baby\u2019 is an infectious little number which shouldn\u2019t have been left off the previous record, In Through The Out Door<\/em>, while the five-minute \u2018Darlene\u2019 with its zippy piano is another bluesy affair with a sleazy vocal croon. However, Bonham\u2019s drum solo, in the form of \u2018Bonzo\u2019s Montreux\u2019, is a four-minute curio at best, a tribute to the great man.<\/p>\n

Coda<\/em> closes with the Page and Plant composition \u2018Wearing And Tearing\u2019, a driving number featuring a galloping drum assault and fuzzy Page riff which builds with haste. Again, it\u2019s another decent track that was omitted from the In Through The Out Door<\/em> opus, and this time, rightly so, as it never really goes anywhere despite Plant\u2019s hoarse sneer and the clanking musicianship.<\/p>\n

Strangely, despite its flaws, Coda<\/em> is more rewarding than Presence<\/em><\/a> (1976), mainly due to the fact that it doesn\u2019t rely on over-elaborate folky passages or downbeat blues explosions, these off-cuts tending to opt for more buzzing boogie rather than melancholic meandering. It\u2019s a record I rarely play and yet appreciate it for what it is; the final word in the career of what was once the world\u2019s biggest rock band.<\/p>\n

While some may not see Coda<\/em> as a fitting end, it\u2019s a record that suggests the band had no more to offer; Page, Plant and bassist John Paul Jones clearly scraping the barrel in search of any long lost gems or unreleased tracks to please the fans. With the punk explosion poisoning the minds of the youth, it seemed that any further Led Zeppelin albums may well have seemed out of time, especially lacking that Bonham drum sound, but Coda<\/em>, despite being a sum of parts, is better than most bands\u2019 studio albums.<\/p>\n

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

LED ZEPPELINCoda Swan Song (1982)Rating: 8\/10 With In Through The Out Door (1979) being the last Led Zeppelin album proper \u2013 the band dissolving in 1980 after the death of drummer John Bonham \u2013 1982\u2019s Coda is merely 33 minutes of outtakes, unreleased tracks etc., spanning the band\u2019s 12-year career. Coda, despite showcasing a batch […]<\/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-11858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-led-zeppelin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858","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=11858"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12129,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858\/revisions\/12129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}