Rock & Pop > 1970 to 1979 Rock & Pop > Digipacks > Hard Rock

Tied My Baby to the Railroad Track

Advantages: A solid album of approachable, high-energy hard rock.
Disadvantages: Nothing too innovative or spectacular, but that's sort of the point.

By the release of their fifth album 'Powerage,' Australia-based, mostly-Scottish hard rock band AC/DC truly defined their famous sound for the first time, and produced the first of their classic albums that's also perhaps the least well-known. The same old issues remain of the international versions being re-mixed and re-ordered, but for the first time both versions feature the same cover art: lead guitarist Angus Young being electrocuted (by alternating ...
...glare as if daring them to play this lethal record. Despite my better judgement, this band comes next on my A-Z of album reviews and I am forced to enter. In truth, it's not that devastating, but once the album gets going there's a great energy that drives the whole thing along to its conclusion at forty minutes. The band is no longer simply playing sped-up rock 'n' roll, but continuing to define its own sound based on the other 70s hard rock acts, ...

Frankingsteins 26.05.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Powerage [Digipak] [Remastered] - AC/DC

Zeppelin finally crash and burn

Advantages: Two outstanding songs
Disadvantages: Their poorest album of all

...final vinyl offering, In Through The Out Door was recorded during winter 1978 at Abba's recording studio, Polar, in Stockholm, Sweden, after an extended run of very bad luck for the band members. Singer Robert Plant and his wife were badly injured in a car crash whilst on a Greek holiday in 1975, Plant ending up in a wheelchair then during a bad-tempered US tour in 1977 his son Karac died. The band's drummer John Bonham was sinking further into a ...
...LP, which was released in the spring of 1979, shooting to No 1 on both sides of the Atlantic. Page was so whacked out on smack those days that he often failed to turn up in the studio for days on end. Similarly Bonham went on benders and left Plant and Jones to get the sessions together. That they managed to do so is a compliment to them; and perhaps with the circumstances as they were it is a wonder that the finished album is even half-listenable. ...

TheIncredibleCheeseSandwich 03.01.2009 · Read full review
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Review of In Through The Out Door (Vinyl Replica Edition) [Digipak] [Remastered] - Led Zeppelin

A collection of folklaw + haunting tales of magic.

Advantages: Folk tales,gentle acoustics,haunting vocals strung along with perfectly distorted guitars,the height of rock n roll!!!
Disadvantages: NONE

...it makes me wonder'. Led zeppelin have to be one of the most magical rock bands in history the inconsistency of all their albums and how quickly they were all released has never been acknowledged by any other band since.Jimmy Page left the 60's group the Yardbirds to form his own band and make history with pals Robert Plant on vocals,John Paul Jones on bass and organs and John Bonham on drums.History is too a small word for what these musical geniouses ...
...like fleetwood mac,pink floyd and led zeppelin were always slightly under the shadow of these two pioneering bands. But with Jimmy Page's blues and hauntingly magical folk influences every song was pumped to the brim with magic from the blues riffs,posesive chord strummings and magically soft and beutiful acoustics the band would become the most important rock band in history.Robert Plant's soft,soothing and admirable high vocals poured love and ...

darkangelwing 19.08.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Led Zeppelin IV (Vinyl Replica Edition) [Digipak] [Remastered] - Led Zeppelin

A Zeppelin slightly deflated

Advantages: A good side one
Disadvantages: A not so good side two

Aah that difficult third album syndrome. Many a band have hit a creative brick wall at this point. If they're struggling, it's usually "do or die", as the record company get ready to pull the plug. If they've been successful, as to this point Zepp had, they have to decide whether to carry on churning out the stuff that got them there in the first place, or try another direction. On this 1970 release, Messrs Plant, Page, Jones and Bonham took the ...
...the wrong decision. Zepp's two other recorded forays (the self-titled first album in 1968 and LZII in 1969) had seen them push the boundaries of the blues into hitherto unknown spheres. Heavy pop, heavy metal, hard rock, call it what you will, they had taken the lighter pop of the 60's and married it to darker, more complex brutal 4/4 time structures to come out the other end with songs as monumental as Whole Lotta Love and How Many More Times. ...

pinkmatchstick 10.10.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Led Zeppelin III (Vinyl Replica Edition) [Digipak] [Remastered] - Led Zeppelin

The song does not remain the same.

Advantages: Incredible performances and production
Disadvantages: Some weak songs

...before the groundbreaking Physical Graffiti, Houses of the Holy sees Led Zeppelin in the middle of their most creative spell, yet seems to fall short of both. It is still an excellent album and one that any other rock band would dream of making. Opening with "The song remains the same", an upbeat and jubillant affair with a powerful driving rhythm, the vocals seem to get lost in the sea of heavy drums and guitars and as a piece of songwriting there ...
...of musicianship than a rock song. The songwriting really starts with with "The rain song", a beautifully minimal pseudo-jazz guitar with acoustics and steel strings mixed with a string section that blends seemlessly with Robert Plant's subtle and yearning vocals. The arrangement is sublime as is Jimmy page's guitar work. Clocking in at over 7 minutes, it still ends too early. "Over the hills and far away" is two songs in one, with a funky -folk ...

graememt 12.12.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Houses Of The Holy (Vinyl Replica Edition) [Digipak] [Remastered] - Led Zeppelin