Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 18:52:25 -0500
From: Jeremy Young 
To: zeppelin-l@cornell.edu
Subject: NME No Quarter review
Message-ID: <941122235225@arcola.demon.co.uk>

A little belated (from last week's NME).
 
Jeremy
 
 
 
EVEN in the sanest of environments, there are but two ways to view 
Led Zeppelin. One is as an inspirational, innovative outfit out to 
shatter preconceptions with a mind-crumbling hybrid of volume and 
rhythms. The second is as a bunch of pissed-up bozos who shagged 
underage groupies with evil abandon and who took the whole hoary 
sexist RAWK machine into a bloated universe from whence it never 
really recovered. And neither did John Bonham.
 
14 years on from the Zep's (and said drummer's natch) demise, well, 
the sweaty thong remains the same. The detractors point to Whitesnake 
and wince, while the more positive amongst us listen to Rage Against 
The Machine's less than subtle approximation of "Kashmir", or the 
Black Crowe's crowded grooves, and say "Aha! Told you so!" Page and 
Plant, not surprisingly, err on the side of the latter. 1994 also 
finds them insisting that, hey!, there's also been much more of a 
global vision element to their music than "Whole Lotta Love" 
suggested, and Unledded is the twosome's chance to set various 
records straight. 
 
Primarily recorded for the benefit of the "Unplugged" series, this 
collection has ended up as a mish-mash of live recordings, studio 
revamps and new creations. Luckily they don't neglect the sillier 
elements of their past, reworking mythical monsters such as "The 
Battle of Evermore" and "Gallows Pole" which, while displaying 
admirably, uh, rustic intentions, end up less finger-in-the-ear than 
head-up-the-arse. And by the time you stagger around to the 12-MINUTE 
orchestral fandango that is "Kashmir" the temptation to stick on that 
C90 of fingers being dragged down blackboards becomes almost 
impossible to resist.
 
And yet...there's something *believable* about all this. It's the way 
Page and Plant have pieced together a posse of musicians, from Porl 
"Cure" Thompson to Egyptian ensembles, to give "Friends" and 
"Nobody's Fault But Mine" an almost charming ethnic twist. It's the 
way they've avoided the obvious (no "Black Dog", no "Whole Lotta 
Love", no "The Song Remains..."), while refusing to petulantly 
disregard all their past. And - most important of all - it's the way 
in which Plant wibbles on about Moroccan sunrises and the like, and 
actually manages to transfer his wandering moods to the music.
 
So spanking new material such as "City Don't Cry", "Yallah"and 
"Wonderful One" (shucks, Unledded *was* recorded in London, Snowdonia 
and Marrakesh) are more Peel-friendly than pill-popping, based as 
they are upon tribal beats, slapped acoustic instruments and African 
chants.
 
Of course, Unledded does not point the way towards the future and 
rarely scales the the emotional heights reached by Nirvana's current 
Unplugged opus. But at least they haven't re-done "Bloody Stairway to 
Bastard Heaven". For small Percies, let us be thankful.