Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin formed out of the ashes of The Yardbirds. Jimmy Page had joined the band in its final days, playing a pivotal role on the group's final album, 1967's Little Games, which also featured string arrangements from John Paul Jones. During 1967, the Yardbirds were fairly inactive. Whilst the band members decided the group's future, Page returned to session work in 1967. In the spring of 1968, he played on Jones' arrangement of Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man." During the sessions, Jones requested to be part of any future project Page would develop…

Led Zeppelin's reunion for an Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert in November 2007 (pushed back a couple of weeks due to a finger injury Jimmy Page sustained during rehearsals) seemed like a spur of the moment thing – but how spontaneous could it have been if it just happened to coincide with the release of an expanded The Song Remains the Same on both CD and DVD, the debut of their catalog as digital downloads, and the new two-disc compilation Mothership as a sampler of the whole shebang? Considering this full-scale, multi-prong assault – which also included a new album by Robert Plant, after all – it was probably not all that spontaneous. Such a precise attack suits this most mythic of classic rock groups, who always benefited from an enormous sense of scale.

Houses of the Holy follows the same basic pattern as Led Zeppelin IV, but the approach is looser and more relaxed. Jimmy Page's riffs rely on ringing, folky hooks as much as they do on thundering blues-rock, giving the album a lighter, more open atmosphere…

Led Zeppelin's reunion for an Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert in November 2007 (pushed back a couple of weeks due to a finger injury Jimmy Page sustained during rehearsals) seemed like a spur of the moment thing – but how spontaneous could it have been if it just happened to coincide with the release of an expanded The Song Remains the Same on both CD and DVD, the debut of their catalog as digital downloads, and the new two-disc compilation Mothership as a sampler of the whole shebang? Considering this full-scale, multi-prong assault – which also included a new album by Robert Plant, after all – it was probably not all that spontaneous. Such a precise attack suits this most mythic of classic rock groups, who always benefited from an enormous sense of scale.