eMusic Review 0
Last night, while in the midst of scribing the Zep saga, I went out for a cold Yuengling in my town, and there, as if bidden, "The Ocean" came on the jukebox. This is not unusual. Any random journey with the radio on is likely to produce a Zeppelin song being played somewhere. But listening to it in a crowded bar on a Saturday night, visualizing Robert looking out "singing to an ocean, I can hear the oceans roar," and imagining the vast wave-like crowds that became their birthright, is to appreciate the sway their mythos held over their fans and themselves. By 1973, the group was an established first-rank attraction, and rather than rest on their arena laurels, Houses of the Holy has a global reach, an expansion of their music rather than contraction. They had visited Asia, taking in the modes and scales and drones of other cultures. While this would not become an overt influence, it did make for an album more densely layered and jigsawed than previously, guitars entangled and rhythms sliced-and-diced. The beat of "The Ocean" seems to double-back on itself, a guitar figure counterpoint to each drum wallop. Bonham is especially precise on this… read more »
