Led Zeppelin
Houses Of The Holy

THE REVIEW

This time I want to review a "lesser" album. Yes, but what does "lesser album" mean?
And whatever it might mean, can you use the word "lesser" to define a work by Led Zeppelin?

"Houses of the Holy," for me, is certainly not a lesser album, but just leaf through any rock encyclopedia to realize that the paid critics with a "k" don't exactly see it the same way.

Yes, I know, the masterpieces recognized by everyone, which have made the Zep legendary, are the first four. And yet in this album dated 1973 there's something magical, that captures the listener and transports them (at least in some tracks) to dreamlike zones that had already peeked out in "III". The punk revolution will soon reduce them to a "jurassic" group, and they will only be rehabilitated thanks to the advent of grunge through bands like Soundgarden and Nirvana, who will rediscover the wheel by combining the rawness of punk with the killer riffs of old Page.

This album hasn't aged well if we must be completely honest, but you can't remain indifferent to the majestic "the rain song" or the compelling "the song remains the same". Just now, as I'm listening to it in the background, I wonder why it has always been so snubbed. Damn, everyone agrees to call "sgt pepper's" or "Revolver" a masterpiece, but no one dreams of delegitimizing "Abbey Road".
So, we could call "Houses" their "Abbey Road"; after all, Plant & Page were never so pop as in "Dancin'days" or "D'yer maker", Oscar-winning rock reggae, songs that knock out the majority of the touted new rock phenomena.

A special mention goes to "no quarter", a marvel that should instantly, if you haven't heard it yet, drive you to recover it, buy it, steal it, listen to it!!!! The magazine you're flipping through, the friend walking around with the Zep t-shirt will advise you to start with the piercing scream of the first album or the power of the second. And perhaps they aren't entirely wrong, as those albums are more representative and seminal (they invented hard rock!).

But for once, you could instead start with a lesser album, one that has no pretensions or desire to make history, to teach anything, but simply contains small great songs to cherish like a secret.