Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Encompassing heavy metal, folk, pure rock & roll, and blues, Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album is a monolithic record, defining not only Led Zeppelin but the sound and style of '70s hard rock. Expanding on the breakthroughs of III, Zeppelin fuse their majestic hard rock with a mystical, rural English folk that gives the record an epic scope. Even at its most basic — the muscular, traditionalist "Rock & Roll" — the album has a grand sense of drama, which is only deepened by Plant's burgeoning obsession with mythology, religion, and the occult. Plant's mysticism comes to a head on the eerie folk ballad "The Ballad of Evermore," a mandolin-driven song with haunting vocals from Sandy Denny, and on the epic "Stairway to Heaven." Of all of Zeppelin's songs, "Stairway to Heaven" is the most famous, and not unjustly. Building from a simple fingerpicked acoustic guitar to a storming torrent of guitar riffs and solos, it encapsulates the entire album in one song. Which, of course, isn't discounting the rest of the album. "Going to California" is the group's best folk song, and the rockers are endlessly inventive, whether it's the complex, multi-layered "Black Dog," the pounding hippie satire "Misty Mountain Hop," or the funky riffs of "Four Sticks." But the closer, "When the Levee Breaks," is the one song truly equal to "Stairway," helping give IV the feeling of an epic. An apocalyptic slice of urban blues, "When the Levee Breaks" is as forceful and frightening as Zeppelin ever got, and its seismic rhythms and layered dynamics illustrate why none of their imitators could ever equal them.

Don Waller, Amazon.com

Jimmy Page was a top London studio guitarist before he got rich and famous as the musical leader of Led Zeppelin. The group's fourth--and arguably their finest--album is as much a tribute to his technique as a monument to his versatility. Page produced the album, co-wrote all eight songs, and played mandolin as well as all the guitars. Musically, this 1971 disc ranges from acoustic English folke ("Goin' to California" and "The Battle of Evermore," the latter featuring the late Fairport Convention frontwoman Sandy Denny) to bone-crushing, bluesy riff-slinging. On the album's centerpiece, "Stairway to Heaven," these light and dark strains are dramatically intertwined. The chiming "Four Sticks" aside, it's the Little Richard-inspired "Rock and Roll" and the tricky time changes--a Zeppelin trademark--of the fast-and-furious "Black Dog" that elevate this album into more than just a bustle in aspiring guitarists' hedgerows.

Billy Altman, Amazon.co.uk

Also known as the "rune" album or Zoso because of the medieval symbols adorning the inner sleeve, Led Zeppelin's fourth album, released in 1971, turned them from mere superstars into giant behemoths of the rock world. On tracks like "Black Dog," "Misty Mountain Hop," and "Rock and Roll," the combination of Robert Plant's banshee wails and Jimmy Page's frenetic guitar playing forever altered the stylistic bent of hard rock music. And the foreboding "When the Levee Breaks" demonstrated that Zeppelin could indeed play the blues fairly straight if they so desired. Still, everything here ultimately took a back seat to the album's (and, ultimately, the band's) magnum opus--the expertly constructed and deftly executed classic, "Stairway to Heaven."

John Milward, Barnes & Noble

Rightfully renowned for the powerful crunch of their blues-based hard rock, Led Zeppelin are regarded as an important stylistic template for everything from heavy metal to grunge. But the softer, folk-rock side of Zeppelin proved to be equally influential, and it was the band's fourth album that achieved the finest balance between bucolic strums and ear-smashing bombast. "Black Dog" opens the album, with vocalist Robert Plant boasting about how he's "gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove," and the band backs up the bravado with the hard rock of "Rock and Roll" and "Misty Mountain Hop," songs that remain touchstones to generations of head-bangers. But guitarist Jimmy Page was also drawn to softer textures, and he shrewdly enlisted Fairport Convention singer Sandy Denny to duet with Plant on "The Battle of Evermore," over mandolins riffling around the pulsing folk melody. Soft meets hard on Zeppelin's most famous song, the epic "Stairway to Heaven," with verses strung upon arpeggiated guitar lines that ultimately lead to an explosive, finely-chiseled blues-rock solo. Led Zeppelin made other fine albums, but this one remains the core of their canon.

 

Stuart Maconie, BBC

If you only buy one Led Zeppelin album, it should be this one. Commonly referred to as either Four or Four Symbols or even just the one with Stairway on it, it marked a synthesis of disparate elements which had been present on previous albums but which had existed in isolation.

So, we get the folk of The Battle of Evermore, featuring ex-Fairport Convention singer Sandy Denny on backing vocals, reminiscent of Led Zeppelin III's acoustic moments. We get the supercharged blues strut of Black Dog and When the Levee Breaks, the latter featuring one of the most monstrous drum sounds ever committed to vinyl (created by hanging the microphone down the middle of a stairwell in the stately home where the album was recorded). And of course you get Stairway to Heaven, which melded folk with metal and launched a thousand bedroom guitarists to boot.

Robert Plant wails magnificently like the blonde Norse god he'd clearly love to be, despite his nickname of Percy. Throughout, lyrics walk the line between bluesman sex-god strut and fey hippie flowerchild (check out Going to California's girl with flowers in her hair or the Tolkien references in The Battle of Evermore) while Jimmy Page sets the standard which all guitar heroes in 1970s rock would aspire to. In all, it's probably their most cohesive album. Physical Graffiti had some greater moments, but lacked the focus of the mighty IV. They're often lumped in with the heavy metal movement, but the mighty Zep were more sophisticated than that. Listen to this classic with fresh ears and you'll see what we mean.

Led Zeppelin: Robert Plant (vocals, harmonica); Jimmy Page (electric, acoustic & 12-string guitar, mandolin); John Paul Jones (bass, keyboards); John Bonham (drums, percussion).
Additional personnel: Sandy Denny (vocals); Ian Stewart (piano).
Recorded at Headley, Grange, Hampshire, Island Studios, London, England; Sunset Sound, Los Angeles, California.
Digitally remastered by Jimmy Page & George Marino.

LED ZEPPELIN IV is the definitive Led Zeppelin recording. It was on LED ZEPPELIN IV that the band's sound and concept, Plant's vocals, and Page's arranging skills finally crystallized into something completely distinct and original. The earthy hedonism of their earlier work was deepened and extended on rockers like "Black Dog," "Rock And Roll" and "Misty Mountain Hop." Their interest in traditional folk music (and a more tender form of sentiment) found fresh expression on "Going To California" and "The Battle Of Evermore" (with Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention). And "When The Levee Breaks" was yet another powerhouse blues.
LED ZEPPELIN IV was also the recording which produced Led Zeppelin's most celebrated composition, "Stairway To Heaven". From its familiar opening chord progression, the song steadily grows in intensity, reflecting Led Zeppelin's growing interest in metaphysical imagery, gradually transforming itself from a folkish ballad into a rocking anthem.

Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, Issue 98, 1971

It might seem a bit incongruous to say that Led Zeppelin–a band never particularly known for its tendency to understate matters–has produced an album which is remarkable for its low-keyed and tasteful subtlety, but that's just the case here. The march of the dinosaurs that broke the ground for their first epic release has apparently vanished, taking along with it the splattering electronics of their second effort and the leaden acoustic moves that seemed to weigh down their third. What's been saved is the pumping adrenaline drive that held the key to such classics as "Communication Breakdown" and "Whole Lotta Love," the incredibly sharp and precise vocal dynamism of Robert Plant, and some of the tightest arranging and producing Jimmy Page has yet seen his way toward doing. If this thing with the semi-metaphysical title isn't quite their best to date, since the very chances that the others took meant they would visit some outrageous highs as well as some overbearing lows, it certainly comes off as their most consistently good.

One of the ways in which this is demonstrated is the sheer variety of the album: out of eight cuts, there isn't one that steps on another's toes, that tries to do too much all at once. There are Olde Englishe ballads ("The Battle of Evermore" with a lovely performance by Sandy Denny), a kind of pseudo-blues just to keep in touch ("Four Sticks"), a pair of authentic Zeppelinania ("Black Dog" and "Misty Mountain Hop"), some stuff that I might actually call shy and poetic if it didn't carry itself off so well ("Stairway to Heaven" and "Going To California") ...

... and a couple of songs that when all is said and done, will probably be right up there in the gold-starred hierarchy of put 'em on and play 'em again. The first, coyly titled "Rock And Roll," is the Zeppelin's slightly-late attempt at tribute to the mother of us all, but here it's definitely a case of better late than never. This sonuvabitch moves, with Plant musing vocally on how "It's been a long, lonely lonely time" since last he rock & rolled, the rhythm section soaring underneath. Page strides up to take a nice lead during the break, one of the all-too-few times he flashes his guitar prowess during the record, and its note-for-note simplicity says a lot for the ways in which he's come of age over the past couple of years.

The end of the album is saved for "When The Levee Breaks," strangely credited to all the members of the band plus Memphis Minnie, and it's a dazzler. Basing themselves around one honey of a chord progression, the group constructs an air of tunnel-long depth, full of stunning resolves and a majesty that sets up as a perfect climax. Led Zep have had a lot of imitators over the past few years, but it takes cuts like this to show that most of them have only picked up the style, lacking any real knowledge of the meat underneath.

Uh huh, they got it down all right. And since the latest issue of Cashbox noted that this 'un was a gold disc on its first day of release, I guess they're about to nicely keep it up. Not bad for a pack of Limey lemon squeezers.

© Frank Steven Groen