My review of Led Zeppelin IV & Houses of the Holy, today at All About Jazz.
Following the 1-2-3 punch of its first three albums--first released between January 1969 and 1970 and reissued in June, 2014 as
the first batch of a year-long series of overdue (and expanded) remasters of its entire nine-album catalog--Led Zeppelin continued on an upward trajectory, touring extensively and beginning to introduce songs that would ultimately appear on the British rock band's fourth album, one that bucked all marketing conventions and contained neither the name of the band nor the name of the album beyond a series of symbols, one for each member of the group. At the time it was referred to, in various camps, as everything from
The Fourth Album and
Untitled Runes to
The Hermit and
ZoSo...but as the years have progressed it's ultimately become known simply--and, not unlike the numeric designations of group's first three recordings--as
Led Zeppelin IV.
Certified gold before release,
IV remains a pinnacle amongst the group's many achievements, though in some ways its massive success has also led to continued overexposure of many of the album's superlative songs on Classic Rock radio stations, unfairly diminishing its status as the group's most truly eclectic album to date--surpassing, even, III's acoustic/electric mixed bag. For those who love this record irrespective of the countless times tracks like "Black Dog," "Rock and Roll" and "Stairway to Heaven" have been aired, Jimmy Page's remaster is, as was the case with Zeppelin's first three recordings, a significant upgrade on previous editions, revealing greater depth and breadth in the sound of the acoustic instruments and adding more punch and bite to the electric ones that dominate most of the album's eight tracks.
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