Led Zeppelin
Presence

The Funeral of the Zeppelin.

August 1975: Robert Plant has a terrible car accident. His wife is saved by a miracle; he sustains multiple fractures all over his body and especially to his legs. Doctors tell him that his complete recovery is not guaranteed. During rehabilitation, alone in a room in California, and with the thought of not being able to walk again, the singer despairs. He picks up the phone and calls Page: "Come here and let's write some songs, or I'll go crazy." Page joins him with his guitar, practically without any material to work on. The two, in a few months, come up with "Presence."

In this album - due to the physical pain and the fact of being forced to sing in a wheelchair - Plant's voice is at its historic low, but his heart was at its peak: "There will never be another album like this. Here it’s me facing despair and telling it: I am stronger than you." Page also praised this work: "I don't know how we did it. We had nothing. With this record, we proved to critics, who thought we were done after 'Physical Graffiti,' that we were not finished."

Really too much grace... If personally, it was an important experience that deserves respect, musically "Presence" is truly insignificant - far from the resurrection of the band. It would warrant complete censure if it weren't for the presence of "Achilles’ Last Stand" (the band's last masterpiece, with 10 guitars overdubbed by Page in a single night) and the elegant self-reference of "Tea for One."

The rest, let's be honest, is just presence...: a sea of mediocrity to which the band had already accustomed its audience since "Houses of the Holy." Only "For Your Life" (with a nice riff and powerful drum work) and "Nobody's Fault But Mine" (the usual blues violation) are worthwhile.

If "Presence" is the funeral of the Zeppelin, the terrible next album will be its tomb - despite the tender "All of My Love," dedicated by Plant to his little son Karac, who died of a stomach infection in the summer of '77.

When the current myth of the Led fades away, as the (equally ridiculous) myth of the Beatles is now fading, the banal truth will remain: a good band with some good albums and some splendid songs forever consigned to the annals of music.

The Led is naked.