The HEAVIEST and most BRUTAL and SERIOUS metal band of ALL TIME get their start with the flowery sleazy Metal Magic~! The album's about as flamboyant as the naked musclebound catboy on the cover would lead you to believe, though in truth it's not as bad as the album titles make it out to be. With songs like Ride My Rocket, Biggest Part Of Me, Nothin' On, Latest Lover, and Tell Me If You Want It, you might expect we'd be treated to some of the most embarrassing sleaze rock ... read more

White Zombie are an enigma. The band did for groove metal what Quorthon did for black metal, before they switched up their style, dropped a landmark industrial metal album, and then split. But before the successes of these 90's projects, they had composed another excellent album, recorded it about as poorly as they could have, and released it with the misprinted title Let Them Die Slowly.

How this was even released in this state boggles the mind. The idea that it even was ... read more

Thus far in their discography, this is the band's worst-produced album. While moving away from the pristine production may be a good idea, and the vocals certainly needed some attention, these problems are not addressed very well. Rather than sounding raw or vintage, the sound here is messy and muddy, with the vocals touched up with various effects across the album. Occasionally they're given a touch of reverb, or made to sound like they're peaking on the microphone, or being ... read more

Greta Van Fleet's second album is an increasingly frustrating experience. What I hear most prominently on this record is unrealized potential. This is a band held back by lackluster production, off-putting creative choices, and of course, the signature vocals.

I recognize that Joshua Kiszka's voice is an acquired taste, much like an Andrew Stockdale or JD Cronise. I, however, have not acquired this taste. It's very difficult not to hear Robert Plant karaoke in his voice, ... read more

Greta Van Fleet's reputation precedes them. Coming into their discography, I already expected that their music would sound distractingly similar to Led Zeppelin. But I had my own personal theory as well: That the average Greta Van Fleet song is likely better than the average Led Zeppelin song. And it turns out that I was right!

It seems that if you want to make music in the style of Led Zeppelin, and your name isn't Jimmy Page or Robert Plant, that it is incumbent on you as a ... read more

A thorough departure from the band's signature sound, this album is a pleasantly gloomy take on progressive rock. It's not meant to be heavy, though it sometimes is; it's meant to be atmospheric, and it usually is. I hesitate to even use the word "rock" to describe this sound, though it's certainly these more rock-oriented moments that are a break in the melancholy atmosphere. The transition between the soft jazz opener Heritage and The Devil's Orchard is an ... read more

I absolutely want to say that I've heard worse from this band, but this is pretty impressively bad. The first few tracks sound like Led Zeppelin at their most inoffensive, and even good at times on Poor Tom and I Can't Quit You Baby Baby Baby. The follow five tracks are various shades of awful.

Wearing And Tearing almost sounds like a Motorhead song, if Motorhead had absolutely no creative standards, or were performing at a circus. Walter's Walk is a classic Robert Plant moan ... read more

I am really astonished just how awful this album is. How songs like Stairway to Heaven and When the Levee Breaks end up sharing space with astoundingly-terrible garbage like Black Dog and Misty Mountain Hop I'll never fully understand. There is just so little of substance here, so few things of interest to muse over. The lyrics are less laughably awful than the standard Zeppelin fare, while the music is generally more grating.

Starting with Black Dog: The word of the day is ... read more

This album feels entirely out of place in Led Zeppelin's discography. The brand of accessible, trendy (or trend-setting) bluesy hard rock heard on prior and subsequent albums is largely sidelined here in favor of artsy folk rock. And that's alright. This's album's alright. It's not boring, it's not uninteresting, it's quite the opposite. Most tracks are pleasant to listen to, pleasant to think about, and just all-around okay.

Lyrically, there's a lot ... read more

I can declare with relief that this barely sounds like Led Zeppelin. While many of the tracks here are rather obnoxious, they're not nearly AS obnoxious, or sickening, or intellectually insulting, as the band's standard fare. I'll take corny forgettable piano rock over grimy sex anthems and bestial moaning.

...usually.

Fool In The Rain is SO corny that it's physically painful to listen to. The piano is overbearing and the vocal performance is strained and off-putting... ... read more

I'm surprised to see that I'm closer to matching the popular consensus of this specific Zeppelin record than I am for their "classics". Though the majority of the tracks here are awful, the two good songs here make up roughly half of the runtime. More realistically, it sounds like the band had solid ideas for two or three songs, and just packed the album with half-assed filler tracks to fill out three quarters of an album.

Both Achilles Last Stand and Tea For One sound like ... read more

The album is awful from the start, the first seconds greeting us with the familiar sound of radio rock riffs and Robert Plant's signature moaning. It's a Led Zeppelin album alright.

It's worth noting that this particular album opens with the lyrics "Drop down, baby, let your daddy see it", which, listening to these records sequentially, is the first thing you hear after the previous album's closer, which states that Robert Plant sings all of these songs for his ... read more

Led Zeppelin, one of the most sexually-charged music acts in history, are assumedly making some sort of statement by putting naked children on their album cover, but I can't venture to say what. Art is generally intended to convey an idea or message, and the use of striking or unorthodox imagery is a common and effective way to invoke a reaction from a viewer. But when your art involves adults convincing children to show them their naked bodies so that they can photograph them, I really ... read more

I truly did not appreciate the inoffensive genericism of the band's first album thoroughly enough. With Zeppelin II, perhaps I get to fully take in the breadth of the band's awful and obnoxious radio rock. Rather than being physically painful to listen to, this album is stomach churning... perhaps more akin to psychological torture.

The lyrics here are absolutely viscerally disgusting. With such gems as "I'm gonna give you every inch" and "I'm gonna love you ... read more

With my general distaste for rock music, I was curious to check out the band's early work, hoping to hear a strong blues influence and the makings of early proto-metal. What I got instead was painfully generic blues tropes played straight, and with hardly any creative edge.

Unless you consider sex edgy.

The lyrics here are impeccably shallow and underwritten, but when delivered in this rambled style "baby baby baby you know, you know I, you know I gotta, gotta, gotta go, yeah baby ... read more

It hurts me physically to not give this a 10/10, because this is one of the most unique albums to ever grace my ears. If there's another musical project that sounds comparable to this, I haven't heard it. This album is the embodiment of groove metal, and the sole album that actually deserves this title, heard but once and never again. No other band, or any project by either White Zombie or Mr. Rob Zombie himself, have reached this height, or even come close to replicating this ... read more

Absolute masterpiece of the folk metal genre. Crushingly heavy, energetic, immersive, and creative.

Dazzlingly progressive folk metal, with varied passages and a complex structure that keep the listener on the edge of their seat. Easy 10/10

Instantly-catchy folk metal, with great riffs, folk instrumentation, and varied group vocals and chants. The chorus on this track is flooring, absolutely one of the most impressive I've heard in the genre, if not ever. Though the verses and pre-chorus don't quite live up to this same standard, this song has been on regular rotation for me since its release.

The words "vicious" and "onslaught" come to mind when thinking about this album, coincidentally matching the title of the opener. This record sounds exactly like the album cover would lead you believe: loud, brutal, and violent, nearly to the point of absurdity. The production on this album is immaculate, sounding exactly as rough and abrasive as it needs to. The sharp and crunchy guitar tone, conjuring to mind the image of a buzzsaw, and the repetitive pounding of the ... read more