Released in 1971, Led Zeppelin IV (or Untitled or Zoso or "picture on a dilapidated wall of burned-out hippie toting a bundle of sticks" or whatever you want to call those four symbols that grace the album's inner label) contains the strongest set of songs the group released on one LP. Yet, tempting as it is to simply rubber stamp their fourth album with a 5 star rating and move along, upon a closer listen I can't quite do that without making a few quick comments.

To me the album falls just shy of absolute perfection due to Robert Plant's penchant for quasi-mystical lyrics on the album's centerpiece, "Stairway to Heaven." That and I never did care that much for the opener, "Black Dog," a kitchen sink blues-rock powerplay, and hearing it constantly imitated in high school corridors by wanna-be rockers has left me numb to it.

OK, now that I got the negative part of the review out of the way, let me add that more important than Plant's lyrics are his singing and the interaction between mates Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. The music on this album is varied and textured and as such improved upon everything the group had done up to this point. Sure, the boys showed a softer side to them on the second half of Led Zeppelin III, but the acoustic numbers here, "Going to California" (a thinly disguised love letter/homage to Joni Mitchell) and "The Battle of Evermore," stand side by side with the heavier parts of the album.

"The Battle of Evermore" features Plant and guest vocalist Sandy Denny alternating poetic lines like minstrels singing of a majestic, good vs. evil, winner-take-all fight (for ever more) in the days of yore. Page nimbly plucks the mandolin to accompany the singers. The enchanting mood created here sets the listener up for the opening verses of the song that follows, "Stairway to Heaven."

Old warhorse that it is, "Stairway to Heaven," when looked at objectively, is a great song. I say "objectively" because the song gets played so much on the radio that one can easily tire of hearing it. This song is the introduction to Led Zeppelin for most first-time listeners. It's been especially popular with suburban teenage boys for 35 years as the guitar song and high school yearbook quote, and I see no reason why it won't remain so for another 35 years. If you don't like "Stairway to Heaven" (and, truth be told, until I was about 13 I hated it) odds are that you won't like Led Zeppelin.

To me, the essence of "Stairway to Heaven" is not found in the Tolkien-esque words crooned by Plant, but in the music. It builds seemlessly from slow to fast, acoustic to electric, soft to loud. For the first half of the eight-minute track, Bonham lays out as Page creates texture with his guitars and multi-instrumentalist Jones chirps in on flute. However, by the song's final minute, Page is finishing up a blistering solo, Bonham is on overdrive behind the drum kit, and Plant shrieks the last verse. It ends Side 1 of the album most emphatically.

Much more so than on previous albums, the band injects a sense of playful fun on straight-ahead bashers like "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Rock and Roll." I don't know if I'm describing it correctly, but they manage to straddle the line between sounding pretentious (c.f. "Whole Lotta Love" from Led Zeppelin II) and sounding ridiculous (c.f. "The Immigrant Song" from Led Zeppelin III).

I'm not certain what kind of magical halycon place Plant is describing on "Misty Mountain Hop," but his sing-song rhythm, coupled with the irresistible groove, make me wanna pack my bags and head for those hills, too. "Rock and Roll" is just a great song about one man's record collection, something that many of us on this site can relate to, I'm sure. Now, if only Cadillac would stop whoring it out as the soundtrack to their commercials--get a new jingle already!

As idolized as "Stairway to Heaven" is, I say that the best song on Led Zeppelin IV is the closer, a cover of Memphis Minnie's "When the Levee Breaks." It is right out of the Chicago blues playbook (indeed, Plant cries "go to Chicago" toward the end) but unlike blues numbers found on earlier Zeppelin albums, "When the Levee Breaks" is played in earnest and not as an over-the-top caricature of the blues. Bonham's thunderous drums provide the sound of a storm approaching, Page's guitar slashes through like lightning, Jones' bass pulses remind me of the water's undertow, and Plant's harmonica wails for an entire community about to get flooded out. All the while, Plant tries to stay composed ("crying won't help you/crying won't do you no good") throughout the catastrophe.

Many rock groups have slavishly imitated Led Zeppelin, but few have come close to capturing their essence. Led Zeppelin IV was the high water mark of the band's career and remains a definitive blueprint of hard rock.

Recommended: Yes