Physical Graffiti (studio album) by Led Zeppelin

This album is bigger than all Hard Rock Gender

What an outstanding 6 track run we have at the start of this record! Every single song in this run is simply phenomenal with the band giving us some incredible performances on every single instrument present on those songs. Every time I revisit this album I am completely blown away all over again with these songs as they are that impressive to experience. This quality does dip only slightly but is still great up until and including The Wanton Song which is where the album could possibly have concluded. After that we do get what can only be described as a bit of a drag to the finish. These final 3 tracks aren't bad but are such an obvious drop off in quality that it makes them seem worse than they are. However, these weaker tracks don't really detract from how amazing the rest of the music is on here. In my opinion, this is the record that solidified the fact that this is the greatest combination of musicians in one group as there is just no weak link amongst these 4 guys. Furthermore, they just seem to gel together so well on their releases with their sound being so cohesive and just such a joy to be able to experience. Overall, this is the most challenging but also the most rewarding album Led Zeppelin ever made and it deserves all the praise that it receives as it is a masterpiece.

Kashmir" and "Trampled Under Foot" are fantastic with their powerful riffs and emotive lyrics.

Solid album

From pedro1976 05/02/2022 05:55

Album of the year. 1975

This album is very near to perfection Led Zeppelin achieved on their fourth album and this one is deginitely their most ambitious one. Custard Pie is very strong opener which transitions into even better The Rover - one of the most memorable songs. In My Time Of Dying is a giant beautiful song, Houses Of The Holy great too, but what they did on Trampled Under Foot and Kashmir is unbelievable. In The Light and Bron-Yr-Aur is a nice break and then comes Down By The Seaside with extremely beach vibe to its melody. Ten Years Gone is just gorgeous and the rest of the album is OK to me. The only song I dislike is Black Sountry Woman and maybe the album is too long and hard to digest to fully appreciate it at the first listen.

I like to think of this as the "fans' album," because it's a very personal album. There are hardly any radio-friendly tracks, (unlike Zoso), which I love. The first three sides are just so brilliant. I don't even mind side 4, because it works in the context with the rest of the album. It's the most unique of the Zeppelin albums. If you're looking for something besides huge radio hits, this is worth listening to.

fave tracks - Kashmir, Trampled Under Foot, Houses of the Holy

A little bit too long, could do with cutting 5 of the weakest songs out and I would rate it higher. But there's some great stuff on here - my highlights are Kashmir (obviously), The Rover (my personal favourite) and Down By The Seaside.

From Jboy56 12/13/2021 17:19

This is a great album and the amount of songs is overwhelming to grab in one sitting. But it is clearly a frontloaded album with the best songs on LP sides 1-3. The last five are sound very much songs that were left over, In Zep rating, they are not so good, but for many other bands, they would have been great songs.
I can't help noticing that a couple of songs have riffs that are very close to each other: Custard Pie vs Wanton Song/Trampled under.. Sonically they are pretty damn close to HOH songs. But that is not surprising.
Zeppelin copies his own songs :)