Sabbath Bloody Sabbath-Black Sabbath

 This evening I am covering some of my favorite Black Sabbath, I will be covering their 5^th album, also the last one that Ozzy liked. There are some real classic Sabbath songs on this album. Most importantly there is Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, but there are several other awesome tracks like A National Acrobat and Sabbra Cadabra, the B-side is good but not legendary like the A-side songs. The guitar riffs make Iommi the true 'riff master' as Ozzy says. Every Sabbath song has an awesome riff driving it along, it is loud and crunchy and gives a great feel to the music. The bass from Geezer is cool as usual providing a nice feel. The drums are also good, but remarkably light. The vocals of Ozzy are unique as usual and he has awesome lyrics.

The guitar on this album is really sweet. It has classic Iommi style riffs, slow and filled with meat. His riffs are just so juicy, you want to dig your teeth into them and enjoy their glorious taste. They are just so satisfying, after listening to the album you feel that you have enjoyed a wonderful musical meal. Then there is the awesome solos, Iommi proves that you can have blues solos in metal songs with this album. He also proves that you can have weird repetitive bits of classical music on an album as well. (See Fluff). Fluff kills the atmosphere in the album especially considering the great stuff that it is surrounded by. The bass is awesome as usual with a lot of goods fills, but nothing to the quality of NIB. The drums are surprisingly light for the band that started heavy metal.

The vocals are pure Ozzy. These were the days before Ozzy became an old smelly fart, when he was still a strong and powerful young drug addict. His voice comes across as very powerful on this album. It shows all of his youthful energy and power. In essence this is Ozzy's voice at it's finest, at the time of a young man at his peak before drugs completely tore him apart and he had to work to rebuild his life. The lyrics are primarily focused around demonic themes. In particular Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is very dark. There are also some love songs on this album most notably Sabra Cadabra, yet even that comes off as sounding rather dark.

Overall this is an awesome album that is just pure Black Sabbath, and possibly there musical peak. There is awesome guitar on this album, not just through the classic Iommi ostenatos (fancy word for riffs) but also his bluesy solos and the cool effects that he starts to use on this album. Then there are the awesome bass riffs which strengthen the music and add a nice feel. In fact there is an instrumental track and another one with an extended solo for the musicians to show off on. Ozzy's voice is awesome as usual, he is truly in his prime on this album. Then of course the lyrics are the classic awesome Sabbath. My fav song off this album is Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. The album is good enough to have high replay value as well.

OVERALL 9/10

Van Halen-Van Halen

 Today I'm reviewing some classic Van Halen. This is one of the first albums to feature tapping as a major soloing technique that set Eddie Van Halen apart from the rest. The album kick starts with 4 Van Halen classic Running With The Devil, the legendary Eruption, You Really Got Me and Ain't Talkin' Bout Love. Those songs set the tone for what was to become the legend of Van Halen. The guitar parts on this album simply blow me away at both their catchiness and technical skill. The other instruments are also given reasonable musical parts. The lyrics are very much in the glam metal style. David Lee Roth has an awesome voice which he showcases well on this album.

The guitar is incendiary and spectacular. There were only a handful of other guitarists in the world at the time who could compete with the skillful master that was Eddie Van Halen. He has memorable riffs that drive a lot of the songs. While the riffs are a big part of the songs they do not dominate like in Black Sabbath recordings. The solos are part of what defines the album, they are amazing and just can not be matched in their speed and explosiveness by any other guitarist outside of those in the handful. The other instruments are given a decent amount of noise as well. The bass comes through a little but it does nothing spectacular. The other Van Halen brothers drums are heavy and strong, but nothing over the top. They do a good job of driving the music though.

The lyrics are either about love or rebellion. They are rather shallow in that regard. The lyrics do perfectly capture the sort of glam rock feel that there is in this album though. There is a power in the lyrics even if they are not deep. They have a poetic power, and power because they are of such high intensity. Part of what gives them their high intensity feel is the shrieking and powerful voice of David Lee Roth. His powerful voice can come out on top of the guitar and help lead the songs on their super charged path.

Overall this is a high powered glam and heavy metal album that shows off one of the best guitarists ever complimented by the spectacular voice of David Lee Roth. This album has several Van Halen classics on it, notably Eruption, Eddie Van Halen's coming out as a guitar god. Anybody into 80s metal would like this album because it features one of the biggest 80s bands at the beginning of their illustrious career. This album as significant replay value and I think anybody could find the sounds on this album awesome. There is spectacular guitar parts and decent parts for the other instruments, the lyrics are good enough and the voice of David Lee Roth is awesome. Go listen to this album now people!

OVERALL 9.5/10

Van Halen

Bomber- Motorhead

 So for the fourth review of the day I am reviewing Motorhead's classic album Bomber. This features some metal classics like Dead Men Tell No Tales and Stone Dead Forever. All feature the classic Lemmy vocals that make us all love Motorhead so much. This album is one of the defining metal albums of the late 70s showing what heavy metal was to become. The riffs are powerful and steady, this is hard and heavy metal with some awesome power chord riffs by Lemmy. The other instruments come through very well and make this album rock. The vocals are 100% heavy metal and dripping with all sorts of metal concepts.

This album is very heavy on a musical level. The power chords basically drive the music along just as much as the drums. The solos are fairly good and add a lot to the music, a complete feel if you will, that makes the music just sound great. Motorhead is filled with great sounds really and they are all heavy, heavy metal. The production quality is a little off so some songs sound a little off, in particular Sweet Revenge. The bass is very dominant coming through especially while Lemmy is singing more than on other artists tracks. This makes for a nice balance between guitar and bass. The drums of course drive along on their own giving the music a nice boost in quality and drive it along steadily forward through each track.

The lyrics are very heavy metal. They talk about a variety of topics, one Dead Men Tell No Tales is anti-heroin, Talking Heads is about televison, Poison talks about marriage among other things. Overall a wide variety of topics are discussed, while the lyrics are not very deep they are not simply violence driven, so I like them a bit for their ideas. The vocals are pure Lemmy, how do you explain it? They are gruff and baritone and 100% Motorhead, and very good. They set Motorhead apart from other bands and give them a completely unique sound which defines the band from top to bottom. The vocals are all Lemmy, so they're gruff and scratchy but still very good.

Overall this is a very good album. It is solid awesome Motorhead. This album rocks, it is heavy, has nice lyrics, great solos, and it has LEMMY. All the parts of the band balance nicely with each other and combine for a very heavy sound. This album has some metal classics on it and really helped to define the sound of the genre. This album really looks ahead to what the whole next decade of metal would bring. There are some amazing build ups here like in Stone Dead Forever and it all sounds just awesome. There are so many good songs on this album that it has a lot of replay value, it can be listened to again and again. I would recommend this to any metal fan.

OVERALL 9/10

Ace of Spades-Motorhead

So yeah 2 reviews today, feel special huh? So now, 11 hours later Ima do a review of the classic early thrash album Ace of Spades by Motorhead. Another suggestion from my oh so helpful Uncle. Also known as one major metalhead. Anyway Lemmy the lead singer of Motorhead says that he is not metal but rock and roll, for the record THIS IS METAL LEMMY ACCEPT IT, YOU ARE AN AWESOME METAL SINGER. This is in fact better defined as early thrash metal than anything else and sounds really cool. It just explodes loud and vicious and shows off a lot of riff building skill with some great power chords in the back. What is also spectacular is that this is probably the worlds heaviest power trio. The fact that they get a sound just as hard as Maiden with only 1 guitar and a bassist who is also the vocalist is pretty spectacular to me. This just seems... I guess not musically possible but it is and it works AMAZINGLY well and sounds just really amazing and embodies true 80's metal.

The first thing you need to know about Motorhead is that Lemmy is no Robert Plant, or even James Hetfield. His voice by most standards sucks. Yet it actually works for this album. A man most people could sing better than just makes Motorhead awesome. He shows that they don't care about image or selling records just their music. If they cared about their music they would get a new lead singer, but that would kill what Motorhead actually is. And this album epitomizes Motorhead an awesome metal trio that has amazing skill and a vocalist with a voice that is PERFECT for this band and would otherwise never work ever not in a million years. Its really cool how it works for him and none other. Wikipedia describes his voice as “gravely” which is pretty much the best way to describe it to someone.

The other musicians are spectacular. While Lemmy's bass does not come through, HOLY CRAP that guitar is amazing! Especially on We are the Road Workers in which we get to here a brilliant solo at the end of the song which shows incredible technical skill on the part of Eddie Clarke. The drums are also brilliant. There is a particularly good drum part in Fire Fire. The album has some great songs on it, I like We are the Road Workers and Fire Fire. Fast and Loose has a title that can be taken out of context and when I first saw it I realized that bathroom humor is an odd thing to be going through your head as you sit down to write. There are 2 true classics on this album though. The 2 really amazing songs are of course Ace of Spades and Jailbait, both awesome Motorhead songs.

So this is a really hard rocking album that almost makes my ears bleed. It is pretty spectacular. There are technical chops and there is Lemmys gravelly voice all coming together to make a pretty amazing album. You totally should listen to this, I like it, it really made my evening. So yeah go crazy.

OVERALL 9/10

Ace of Spades

Ramones- Ramones

Right so now I felt like covering the very first (or at least one of the first) punk albums. This album which was 33^rd on Rolling Stone Magazine 500 greatest album list is the self title debut album Ramones. I would like to point out that the cover art is awesome by the way. This album is loud and hard and pretty much epitomizes punk. The lyrics are offensive and the sound can only be described as brash. It is a bold album that heartily flipped off the emerging genre of glam rock and the more and more self absorbed rock that was growing more popular. These guys said no to all of that and burst on the scene with some bold and powerful lyrics and music that before this had never been seen before. This album truly marks the birth of punk.

The music is definitely technically lacking. A couple months ago I learned 3 of their songs in one day, all 3 of them were off this album. But there is just something about this album that makes it appeal and you just have to love it despite the fact that there is little technical skill. The band is not talent free it's just that they know what type of sound that they want and they are willing to use it all the time. The sound is like one constant wave of different sounds of distortion, in a good way. If you listen to the album you will understand what I am saying. You can't put the feeling this album gives you in words.

The lyrics are often pretty offensive but Deedee Ramone just has something that makes it all seem all right. Bold and powerful but all right. His voice, ever since I first heard it back in 6^th grade has always attracted me. It really shows a lot of raw punkness. That's the thing with this album you can't rate it by technical skill but rather the sheer sound in itself. The music shows little technical skill if you look at the individual notes but the rhythms in themselves make the album what it is. Like I said you have to give it a listen or else you'll have no idea what I am talking about. Just listen to it right now, when your done you can read the rest of the article.

Overall this album is really hard rocking and pretty darn metal if you ask me. It used high levels of distortion for the era and had an amazing rock and roll atmosphere that was really cool and came off well. For me this is one of the albums that MAKES rock and roll. Punk is a very important subgenre and this album kicks it off in a loud and bold style that shows all of the flair of a hardcore punk album and is really a whole new subgenre of metal. Actually now that I think about it this maybe the very first subgenre of metal ever to be created. But yeah, this album rocks so go listen to it before I have to eat you.

OVERALL 9.75/10

Ramones (Dlx)

Judas Priest Rocka Rolla

Well today as we continue through the decades we will be doing another great 70s band. Judas Priest and their first album Rocka Rolla. This album has some pretty nifty cover art. The sound is sorta Iron Maideny and nice and heavy. There are some pretty funky rhythms going on here that come off pretty well. There are some really nice bass lines and some good guitar verse parts and chorus bits. It has quite a few nice riffs. The lead track One For the Road lacks technical skill but it is still catchy and definitely heavy metal. The immediately following track shows a bit more technical skill but it sticks to a theme of simple song construction.

JUDAS PRIEST ROCKA ROLLA SONG CONSTRUCTION CHART

Intro------>Verse with some nice riffs------>Chorus with some more nice riffs---Rinse and repeat possibly adding solo--> Nice riff filled extro

That kind of sums up the song writing here.

That is not to say the music is bad. In fact it is really good it just kind of lacks chutspah if you know what I mean. The technical skill is pretty good and the riffs are creative but the overall album lacks force behind it. It is an above average album yes with good musical skill and showing definite potential but they're are some weird bits that don't quite come off. This is especially prevalent in the track deep freeze. Which frankly sucks. They could do with a bit more soloing. I think that if they had added more solos which were more vicious ad powerful they could have showed themselves to be a powerful and thrashing band.

Instead they show some weak attempts at solo that show potential but frankly fail to come off. Overall the technical skill is pretty good and I really like a lot of the riffs on this album. In fact the riffs kind of save the album from completely sucking they are just so amazing and can drive songs. So asides from lacking force this album shows a lot of nice riffs and a lot of of potential for the band that Priest was to become. On a personal note this is an album that my semi insane and dying third cousn danny devito produced. H's a cool cousin and my 2^nd favorite relative. (1^st is my aunt 3^rd is my uncle he has lots of guitars.)

OVERALL 7/10

Rocka Rolla

Uriah Heep Very 'Eavy Very 'Umble

WAIT WAIT, Hold the Phone. Before we continue marching through the decades of metal I forgot what we haven't covered in the origins of heavy metal series! So just pretend this article is back with those other ones please.

So right... Uriah Heeps debut album Very “Eavy, Very 'Umble. First I would like to say that the album cover is from what I've seen of early metal covers the first truly heavy metal album cover almost reminiscent of EDDIE. The music starts off with a really nice heavy guitar and organ driven sound Byron shows off a great voice going up and down the scale and being super awesome. It actually is almost Paul D'Ianno like. (That's a good thing.) Heep knew a good thing when they found it and used some really interesting AC/DCish solos where they repeated the same power chord while another guitar soloed over it.

The music is interesting. While for the most part a heavy metal album there are definitely acoustic, blues and jazz bits. This is especially prominent in the song Lucy Blues which kind of leaves the other premises of the album and seems kind of out of place. Actually the song Lucy Blues is an interesting contrast between the metal of some tracks and the blues of that one a true blues track. This seems kind of contradictory as to how most of the album sounds but it is still pretty good on its own. There are also some interesting and weird psychedelic parts especially in Gypsy that have gathered my attention and make me smile. They are quite interesting and provide a nice touch to the songs they feature in.

The technical playing is very good and impressive especially in the lead track Gypsy. There is stunning contrast, this is seen between the song Gypsy and the very next track Come away. Gypsy is a hard rocking lead track and Come Away is a mournful and quiet ballad. It is interesting how they fit both blues and hard rock on one record but they manage it pretty well. It allows them plenty of genres to work in so I suppose that it is good for them as a band. Come Away is then brilliantly contrasted again against the immediately following track I'll Keep on Trying which is a hard rock ballad type thing that is really riff driven.

Overall this is a nice album. It features good contrast between tracks some of them being hard and others being bluesy. They show technical skill in the solos and have great vocals. It is well put together and produce and provides a really cool feel. There are dark lyrics and raunchy lyrics and other sorts of lyrics. It comes off really well overall and it should appeal to most metal fans who are into earlier metal and are willing to listen to some blues. This album is pretty amazing but it just lacks a je ne se quoi. But really you should listen to it.

OVERALL 8.5/10

Very Eavy Very Umble

Iron Maiden- Iron Maiden

Now I'm going to continue my metal history chronicles through the decades. Mostly we have done late 60's up to '71.

So today Ima cover my favorite purely metal band, IRON MAIDEN. We will be covering their first album named Iron Maiden this is an album released in 1980 but the band formed in 1975 with some issues resulting in the release of the first album. The album starts with a bang and is explosive and amazing. It has an almost sing-a-long quality too it (The Prowler) that is. In fact it right away shows the amazingness of Iron Maiden who invented what I call the Heavy Metal Sing-A-Long, Notable songs in this thing of sing-a-long metal include Brave New World and Mother of Mercy.

The songs are powerful and hard and some true classics are on this album. They are unbelievably hard for the era and the vocals and guitar support each other. Di'Anno is my second favorite Maiden lead singer to Dickinson. Di'Anno has a great voice for a metal album Harris is of course a fantastic bassist as he has always been. Dave Murray rips out some REALLY impressive solos. He set the tone for every Maiden song having a solo and all of them being amazing and powerful. The drum work done on this album by Clive Burr is at a high level, not fantastic like Bonham or Moon or even my favorite Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain but still really good powerful drumming.

The lyrics are dark, raunchy, loud, balladish and sweaty. Basically they set the tone for Iron Maiden albums to come. I love Maiden's loud and powerful lyrics. This album comes off really well and I really think it comes off well. There are lots of powerful riffs especially in Running Free. There are a lot of classics on this album, these include Phantom of the Opera, Iron Maiden, and Running Free. While those songs are not the best of the Maiden songs these are still pretty good. This is a classy album for lack of a better word. It set the tone for years of metal to come, and is really a staple in the history of metal. Another note about this album is that in the songs Strange World and Phantom of the Opera birth the Maiden styled awesome rock ballad.

Overall this album rocks pretty hard. It comes off pretty well and shows a lot of technical skill. I like it and I think most metalheads would like it quite a bit. There is a lot of range here and a lot of skill and brilliant lyrics but you can definitely tell the band is young. The production quality is.. ok but not great. Even Harris doesn't like the production on this album. The remasters sound a lot better. Overall a great album but one that shows room for improvement

OVERALL 8.5/10

Iron Maiden

Led Zeppelin Band Profile

Well this is the first in what I call band profiles. It is a collection of profiles of bands and their famous works as well as influences and some people they influenced.

So today we start out band profiles with what is in my honest (and correct) opinion the best band ever. That band, as those of you who were not to lazy to read the title will know is Led Zeppelin. Also known as Led Zep, Zeppelin or simply Zep this is a legendary band that has sold millions of records and is loved (or at least appreciated) by every single sane human being. They have countless classics and brilliant band members and their influence has made rock what it is. These guys made STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN the best song EVER. These guys made Whole Lotta Love, these guys made kids want to grow up to be rock stars and some of them (read Jack White and Cobain among others) actually became amazing cool guitar gods.

The most notable part of Zep is the fact that they are composed of 4 of the greatest musicians who have ever lived all of whom regularly make the lists of top 10 musicians of whatever instrument they played. There was Jimmy Page who is in my opinion the best guitar player ever, but I will allow Hendrix to enter the debate His solos are legendary and spectacular. There was John Bonham, whose heavy drumming and powerful arms made him a drum legend, second only to Keith Moon. There was John Paul Jones (that was his stage name) crafter of great bass lines and good in numerous other instruments that made him invaluable to any Zeppelin album or song. Then there was Robert Plant (who I have tickets to see October 24^th!!!) one of the best vocalists of all time and possibly the one with the greatest vocal range. Together these men grew their hair out, smoked, and rocked their way into godhood.

They formed up in 1968 having to do a Scandinavian tour for the Yarbirds a band containing Jimmy Page who had just broken up. Page was assigned the task by the ex-Yardbirds members to make a line up for this tour. He found Plant, Bonham and Jones and a legend was born. They liked their sound so much they decided to stay together after the tour and formed Led Zep. Their first album came out in 1969 and started with the hard and formidable Good Times Bad Times and it just stayed hard from there.

Overall this is the best band ever. A combination of hard rock and metal and also blues influences they showed great musicianship and skill. I like all other good Zep fans wish daily for the Great Return, when Plant, Page, Bonham's son Jason (John Bonhams son, Bonham died in an alchohol related incident in 1980 but Jason is a skilled drummer.) and Jones join up and tour again.

OVERALL 10/10

Black Sabbath- Paranoid

Yeah! This is a fantastic album. The birth of heavy metal is clear here. War Pigs is an extremely hard and awesome intro to one of the best rock albums of all time. This album is among the first examples of dark war-based riffs. There is a political commentary hear too. If this album got in a fight with almost any other album the other album would go home crying to the extremely hard riffs and power of this bad boy. This is just an explosion of metal here. A lot harder than their debut “Black Sabbath” it also features some flashier guitar work. This is an example of metal's coming out into the 70's. I'm sure people hearing this album for the first time were like WOW my ears are bleeding and this is amazing! On a more personal note Iron Man (on this album) is the second song I learned to play on guitar and the first I could play upside down behind my head. (Yeah I can do that). This is among the best albums ever.

There are some iconic Sabbath songs on this album, in particular Paranoid, Iron Man and War Pigs. (Ironic that Iron Man is nt the title of this album as that goes on to be the more popular song.) The music is hard and powerful. Ozzy's voice (which is the first thing I think of when I think of metal vocals) dominates the music while Iommi proves himself as a guitar god. The album is so hard you can feel it and it just fills you with an inexplicable urge to turn the amp up to 11 :) and have the sound destroy your house (or apartment building in my case).

There is nice juxtaposition though, this is especially seen between the songs Paranoid and the immediately following and much softer track Planet Caravan. Which in my opinion is a pretty weak piece without Paranoid behind it to make it juxtapose in a nice way. Planet Caravan is also the only place on the album that you can hear any of the blues influence of Sabbath (Polka Fulk, teehee). No doubt the best track is the legendary Iron Man, the only good song most little kids know. I play it loud to tick off those pop listening neighbors. I love that song it just fills me with all the emotions metal is supposed to make you feel. It is headbanging angry and generally the 2^nd best song ever (number 1 is Stairway).

Overall this is a monster album. Possibly Sabbath's best featuring most of their best songs (misses Crazy Train). This album just dominates the entire metal scene. All you Death Metalheads would have nothing but for these guys and Iommi's missing fingers (actually this is what my grandfather thinks is extreme metal, and it was in his day :)). This is so hard and amazing you can't help but love it. There are great musical effects and power all over the place. The lyrics rock, actually everything about this album rocks. In short I and every other sane person on earth loves tis album.

OVERALL 10/10

Paranoid

Deep Purple- In Rock

Wow... In literally the first 10 seconds of this album your jaw drops. This can not possibly be the music of 1970! But it is. There is an amazingly distorted guitar sound at the very beginning of the first track Speed King. After this amazing guitar intro comes an organ solo, and then its just pure hard rock. This is the album that made Bruce Dickinson become a musician, and is really just amazingly hard for the era. It may even be harder than Sabbath's eponymous debut album. Its really just amazing. The vocals are hard and at times screechy and 100% heavy metal. It's very interesting how they contrast the really hard parts with light piano solos. This album is really hard though. It almost has an Iron Maiden feel to it.

The technical chops are above average, better than Iron Butterfly and Steppenwolf and maybe on par Sabbath but definitely not better than Led Zep. This album really does rock. It is hard and strong just like rock was meant to be. Its fully distorted metal with incredible sound and riffs. It has explosive tones especially in the song Bloodsucker. Actually the whole album is explosive and feels almost like a more technically skilled Steppenwolf. The solos are pretty nice and harder than anything ever done by Page. I think that overall it is more distorted than Sabbath's first album. It has a scratchy messed up and literally distorted feel. It works well for the album though. The scratchy super distorted guitar is nicely offset by the piano.

The drumming is good enough. While not truly spectacular it does drive the music well and it does indeed provide something to the overall feel. The lyrics sound angry and hard almost screaming. This can clearly be seen as an influence to Iron Maiden and even by extension death metal. In some tracks like Child In Time show that Ian Gillan can do quieter gentler vocals. The contrast in songs like Child In Time between hard and soft is really cool and comes off well. I especially like how it progressively gets harder almost a predecessor to progressive rock. This album is really hard and powerful and has influenced so many musicians it is on its own very much a piece of music history, having influenced so many good bands.

Overall this album rocks. It features some early prog rock, some technically challenging solos a nice distorted sound, great contrast and a hard and dirty feel. I think that this album is one of the things that truly made rock and roll dangerous. This along with Sabbath's first album gave birth to real heavy metal, not normal metal, this album is really heavy and super cool and powerful. I love this album and it is a pleasure to listen to.

Overall 9/10

Deep Purple In Rock

LED ZEPPELIN-LED ZEPPELIN 2

All right, This is a killer album. Coming just months after their hit debut Led Zeppelin I they come back and prove they are some of the best in the biz with an explosive, psychedelic and technically amazing album There are a couple of high hits on the billboard her including the amazing “Whole Lotta Love”. In fact Whole Lotta Love is the highlight of a great album. Personally I can play 4 of the 9 songs on this album, and there is a reason for that! This is a great album in both the history of rock and the history of heavy metal. This album is in my opinion the first sign of the coming out of Zep as the best band ever. If you deny Zep is the best band ever (or at least better than 99.9% of artists) I will hurt you.

The feel of this album is powerful and metally especially in Whole Lotta Love. The bluesy influence of Plant is still seen though in songs like the Lemon Song. Overall there are some really hard parts, especially considering the Beatles still were owning it up on the billboards and metal and hard rock was just getting popular. Page truly proves he is one of the best guitarists ever on this album. His riff's are truly spectacular. He could have stopped playing after this album and still be seen as a great. The best part of this album is that all the band members get to shine. Some of the songs especially What is and Never Should Be are really driven by the bass line. Page of course proves his rock-godliness even more than he did in 'Led Zeppelin' (the album folks). Then there's Moby Dick, which in concert could be a 20 minute guitar solo. It cements Bonham in his place in rock history as one of the best drummers in all of Rock and Roll as well as metal.

The lyrics are nice and really amazing. Plant has a fabulous voice. (Did I mention I have Robert Plant Tickets :)) He can be both whiny and bluesy and hard and metally. This can be seen in the juxtaposition between Whole Lotta Love (a hard song) and The Lemon Song (a song that gets regular play on blues radio stations). The technical chops from all band members are amazing. Asides from Plant's awesome vocal range there are some of the best guitar solos of all time. Then there are great bass parts in many of the songs. And then of course Moby Dick probably what is the best drum solo of all time.

Overall this is a rocking and awesome album. I really like the LOTR reference in Ramble On :). There are powerful songs like Heartbreaker and Whole Lotta Love. Amazing technical chops from all the band members especially Page's solos and Moby Dick. The lyrics are amazing and have just a great feel and give me a genuinely happy feeling. Seriously after a long day at school I just listen to Whole Lotta Love and BAM I'm happy. If you can listen to this album and not love Led Zep (or at least Page) you have some sort of terminal ear cancer and I am very sorry please accept my condolences.

OVERALL 10/10

Led Zeppelin II