Led Zeppelin – Coda (Deluxe Edition) (1982/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:37:09 minutes | 2,10 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records

Released two years after the 1980 death of John Bonham, Coda tied up most of the loose ends Led Zeppelin left hanging: it officially issued a bunch of tracks circulating on bootleg and it fulfilled their obligation to Atlantic Records. Coda doesn’t contain every non-LP track Zeppelin released – notably, the B-side “Hey Hey What Can I Do” and anything from the BBC sessions were left untouched (they’d be added to Coda on a 1993 CD revision of the compilation, and also appear on the major three-disc overhaul Jimmy Page masterminded in 2015) – but it does gather much of what was floating around in the wake of their demise, including three blistering rockers that were rejected for In Through the Out Door. If “Ozone Baby,” “Darlene,” or “Wearing and Tearing” – rockers that alternately cut loose, groove, and menace – had made the cut for In Through the Out Door, that album wouldn’t have had its vague progressive edge and when they’re included alongside a revival of the band’s early raver “We’re Gonna Groove,” the big-boned funk of the Houses of the Holy outtake “Walter’s Walk,” and the folk stomp “Poor Tom” (naturally taken from the sessions for Led Zeppelin III), they wind up underscoring the band’s often underappreciated lighter side. For heaviness, there’s a live version of “I Can’t Quit You Baby” and “Bonzo’s Montreux,” a solo showcase for the departed drummer, and when this pair is added to the six doses of hard-charging rock & roll, it amounts to a good snapshot of much of what made Led Zeppelin a great band: when they were cooking, they really did groove.

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Led Zeppelin – In Through The Out Door (Deluxe Edition) (1979/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:25:26 minutes | 1,89 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records

Marshalling their strength after the dark interlude of Presence – a period that extended far after its 1976 release, with the band spending a year in tax exile and Robert Plant suffering another personal tragedy when his son died – Led Zeppelin decided to push into new sonic territory on their eighth album, In Through the Out Door. A good deal of this aural adventurism derived from internal tensions within the band. Jimmy Page and John Bonham were in the throes of their own addictions, leaving Plant and John Paul Jones alone in the studio to play with the bassist’s new keyboard during the day. Jones wound up with writing credits on all but one of the seven songs – the exception is “Hot Dog,” a delightfully dirty rockabilly throwaway – and he and Plant are wholly responsible for the cloistered, grooving “South Bound Saurez” and “All My Love,” a synth-slathered ballad unlike anything in Zeppelin’s catalog due not only to its keyboards but its vulnerability. What’s striking about In Through the Out Door is how the Plant-Jones union points the way toward their respective solo careers, especially that of the singer’s: his 1982 debut Pictures at Eleven follows through on the twilight majesty of “In the Evening” and particularly “Carouselambra,” which feels like Plant and Jones stitched together every synth-funk fantasy they had into a throttling ten-minute epic. With its carnivalesque rhythms, “Fool in the Rain” also suggests the adventurousness of Plant, but it’s also an effective showcase for Bonham – it’s a monster groove – and Page, whose multi-octave solo is among his best. Elsewhere, the guitarist colors with shade and light quite effectively, but only the slow, slumbering closer “I’m Gonna Crawl” feels like his, a throwback to Zeppelin’s past on an album that suggests a future that never materialized for the band.

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Led Zeppelin – Presence (Deluxe Edition) (1976/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:18 minutes | 1,73 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records

Created at a time of intense turmoil for Led Zeppelin – they scrapped a planned international tour in the wake of Robert Plant’s car accident in Greece in August 1975 – Presence is a strange, misshapen beast of a record that pulls upon its own tension. With Plant somewhat on the sidelines – he recorded many of the vocals while in a wheelchair – Jimmy Page reasserted himself as the primary creative force in the band, helping steer Presence toward a guitar-heavy complexity, perched halfway between a return to roots and unfettered prog. This dichotomy means it feels like Presence sprawls as wildly as Physical Graffiti even though it’s half its length: the four epics tend to overshadow the trio of lean rockers that really do hark back to the Chess boogie and rockabilly that informed Zeppelin’s earliest work. Each of these three – “Royal Orleans,” “Candy Store Rock,” “Hots on for Nowhere” – plays as snappily as the throwaways on the second half of Physical Graffiti, containing a sexy insouciance; the band almost seems to shrug off how catchy Page’s riffs and how thick the grooves of John Bonham and John Paul Jones actually are. No matter how much fun this triptych is, they’re lost underneath the shadow of “Achilles Last Stand,” a ten-minute exercise in self-styled moody majesty and the turgid blues crawl of closer “Tea for One.” In between, there are two unalloyed masterpieces that channel all of the pain of the period into cinematic drama: a molten blues called “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” and “For Your Life,” as sharp, cinematic, and pained as Zeppelin ever were. Added together, Presence winds up as something less than the sum of its parts but its imbalance also means that it’s a record worth revisiting; it seems different upon each revisit and is always compelling.

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Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti (Deluxe Edition) (1975/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:04:23 minutes | 2,77 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records

Led Zeppelin returned from a nearly two-year hiatus in 1975 with the double-album Physical Graffiti, their most sprawling and ambitious work. Where Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy integrated influences on each song, the majority of the tracks on Physical Graffiti are individual stylistic workouts. The highlights are when Zeppelin incorporate influences and stretch out into new stylistic territory, most notably on the tense, Eastern-influenced “Kashmir.” “Trampled Underfoot,” with John Paul Jones’ galloping keyboard, is their best funk-metal workout, while “Houses of the Holy” is their best attempt at pop, and “Down by the Seaside” is the closest they’ve come to country. Even the heavier blues – the 11-minute “In My Time of Dying,” the tightly wound “Custard Pie,” and the monstrous epic “The Rover” – are louder and more extended and textured than their previous work. Also, all of the heavy songs are on the first record, leaving the rest of the album to explore more adventurous territory, whether it’s acoustic tracks or grandiose but quiet epics like the affecting “Ten Years Gone.” The second half of Physical Graffiti feels like the group is cleaning the vaults out, issuing every little scrap of music they set to tape in the past few years. That means that the album is filled with songs that aren’t quite filler, but don’t quite match the peaks of the album, either. Still, even these songs have their merits – “Sick Again” is the meanest, most decadent rocker they ever recorded, and the folky acoustic rock & roll of “Boogie with Stu” and “Black Country Woman” may be tossed off, but they have a relaxed, off-hand charm that Zeppelin never matched. It takes a while to sort out all of the music on the album, but Physical Graffiti captures the whole experience of Led Zeppelin at the top of their game better than any of their other albums.

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Led Zeppelin – House Of The Holy (Deluxe Edition) (1973/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:07 minutes | 1,70 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records

Houses of the Holy follows the same basic pattern as Led Zeppelin IV, but the approach is looser and more relaxed. Jimmy Page’s riffs rely on ringing, folky hooks as much as they do on thundering blues-rock, giving the album a lighter, more open atmosphere. While the pseudo-reggae of “D’Yer Mak’er” and the affectionate James Brown send-up “The Crunge” suggest that the band was searching for material, they actually contribute to the musical diversity of the album. “The Rain Song” is one of Zep’s finest moments, featuring a soaring string arrangement and a gentle, aching melody. “The Ocean” is just as good, starting with a heavy, funky guitar groove before slamming into an a cappella section and ending with a swinging, doo wop-flavored rave-up. With the exception of the rampaging opening number, “The Song Remains the Same,” the rest of Houses of the Holy is fairly straightforward, ranging from the foreboding “No Quarter” and the strutting hard rock of “Dancing Days” to the epic folk/metal fusion “Over the Hills and Far Away.” Throughout the record, the band’s playing is excellent, making the eclecticism of Page and Robert Plant’s songwriting sound coherent and natural.

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Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV (Deluxe Edition) (1971/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:23:08 minutes | 1,82 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records

Encompassing heavy metal, folk, pure rock & roll, and blues, Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album is a monolithic record, defining not only Led Zeppelin but the sound and style of ’70s hard rock. Expanding on the breakthroughs of III, Zeppelin fuse their majestic hard rock with a mystical, rural English folk that gives the record an epic scope. Even at its most basic – the muscular, traditionalist “Rock and Roll” – the album has a grand sense of drama, which is only deepened by Robert Plant’s burgeoning obsession with mythology, religion, and the occult. Plant’s mysticism comes to a head on the eerie folk ballad “The Battle of Evermore,” a mandolin-driven song with haunting vocals from Sandy Denny, and on the epic “Stairway to Heaven.” Of all of Zeppelin’s songs, “Stairway to Heaven” is the most famous, and not unjustly. Building from a simple fingerpicked acoustic guitar to a storming torrent of guitar riffs and solos, it encapsulates the entire album in one song. Which, of course, isn’t discounting the rest of the album. “Going to California” is the group’s best folk song, and the rockers are endlessly inventive, whether it’s the complex, multi-layered “Black Dog,” the pounding hippie satire “Misty Mountain Hop,” or the funky riffs of “Four Sticks.” But the closer, “When the Levee Breaks,” is the one song truly equal to “Stairway,” helping give IV the feeling of an epic. An apocalyptic slice of urban blues, “When the Levee Breaks” is as forceful and frightening as Zeppelin ever got, and its seismic rhythms and layered dynamics illustrate why none of their imitators could ever equal them.

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Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin III (Deluxe Edition) (1970/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:24:39 minutes | 1,86 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records

On their first two albums, Led Zeppelin unleashed a relentless barrage of heavy blues and rockabilly riffs, but Led Zeppelin III provided the band with the necessary room to grow musically. While there are still a handful of metallic rockers, III is built on a folky, acoustic foundation that gives the music extra depth. And even the rockers aren’t as straightforward as before: the galloping “Immigrant Song” is powered by Robert Plant’s banshee wail, “Celebration Day” turns blues-rock inside out with a warped slide guitar riff, and “Out on the Tiles” lumbers along with a tricky, multi-part riff. Nevertheless, the heart of the album lies on the second side, when the band delve deeply into English folk. “Gallows Pole” updates a traditional tune with a menacing flair, and “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp” is an infectious acoustic romp, while “That’s the Way” and “Tangerine” are shimmering songs with graceful country flourishes. The band hasn’t left the blues behind, but the twisted bottleneck blues of “Hats off to (Roy) Harper” actually outstrips the epic “Since I’ve Been Loving You,” which is the only time Zeppelin sound a bit set in their ways.

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Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II (Deluxe Edition) (1969/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:18 minutes | 1,60 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records

Recorded quickly during Led Zeppelin’s first American tours, Led Zeppelin II provided the blueprint for all the heavy metal bands that followed it. Since the group could only enter the studio for brief amounts of time, most of the songs that compose II are reworked blues and rock & roll standards that the band was performing on-stage at the time. Not only did the short amount of time result in a lack of original material, it made the sound more direct. Jimmy Page still provided layers of guitar overdubs, but the overall sound of the album is heavy and hard, brutal and direct. “Whole Lotta Love,” “The Lemon Song,” and “Bring It on Home” are all based on classic blues songs – only, the riffs are simpler and louder and each song has an extended section for instrumental solos. Of the remaining six songs, two sport light acoustic touches (“Thank You,” “Ramble On”), but the other four are straight-ahead heavy rock that follows the formula of the revamped blues songs. While Led Zeppelin II doesn’t have the eclecticism of the group’s debut, it’s arguably more influential. After all, nearly every one of the hundreds of Zeppelin imitators used this record, with its lack of dynamics and its pummeling riffs, as a blueprint.

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Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin (Deluxe Edition) (1969/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:56:21 minutes | 1,79 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Atlantic Records

Led Zeppelin had a fully formed, distinctive sound from the outset, as their eponymous debut illustrates. Taking the heavy, distorted electric blues of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Cream to an extreme, Zeppelin created a majestic, powerful brand of guitar rock constructed around simple, memorable riffs and lumbering rhythms. But the key to the group’s attack was subtlety: it wasn’t just an onslaught of guitar noise, it was shaded and textured, filled with alternating dynamics and tempos. As Led Zeppelin proves, the group was capable of such multi-layered music from the start. Although the extended psychedelic blues of “Dazed and Confused,” “You Shook Me,” and “I Can’t Quit You Baby” often gather the most attention, the remainder of the album is a better indication of what would come later. “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” shifts from folky verses to pummeling choruses; “Good Times Bad Times” and “How Many More Times” have groovy, bluesy shuffles; “Your Time Is Gonna Come” is an anthemic hard rocker; “Black Mountain Side” is pure English folk; and “Communication Breakdown” is a frenzied rocker with a nearly punkish attack. Although the album isn’t as varied as some of their later efforts, it nevertheless marked a significant turning point in the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal.

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