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Presence | 
 enlarge | Artist: Led Zeppelin
Label: Atlantic / Wea
Category: Music
List Price: $11.98
Buy New: $5.21
You Save: $6.77 (57%)
New (64) Used (31) Collectible (2) from $2.66
Rating:  216 reviews
Sales Rank: 1406
Format: Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 92439
UPC: 075679243928
EAN: 0075679243928
ASIN: B000002JSJ
Release Date: August 16, 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW Factory Sealed - Ready to be shipped within 24 hrs from California - Average 5 workdays delivery time - Excellent customer service - Buy with confidence!
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| Tracks:
| • | Achilles Last Stand | | • | For Your Life | | • | Royal Orleans | | • | Nobody's Fault But Mine | | • | Candy Store Rock | | • | Hots On For Nowhere | | • | Tea Is For One |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Presence is one of Led Zeppelin's more overlooked albums, languishing in the monstrous shadow of its predecessor, Physical Graffiti. It's more noted in Zeppelin mythology for the circumstances in which it was recorded, in double-quick time with vocalist Robert Plant's leg in plaster after a car accident. The lack of time does show--much of the album feels like generic heavy rock, bigger on volume than variety. It's worth the price of the album, however, for the 10-minute-plus "Achilles Last Stand" (a crashing, galloping epic with John Bonham sounding like he's replaced his drumsticks with tree trunks) and "Nobody's Fault but Mine," a Blind Willie Johnson blues regenerated with a 3,000-watt boost by Jimmy Page. --David Stubbs
Album Description
2005 Japanese standard jewel case pressing of Led Zeppelin's 1976 album. Features the same tracks and mastering as the US edition but includes an OBI and Japanese/English insert. Warner. 2005.
Album Details
35th Anniversary Re-issue Japanese Limited Edition in an LP-STYLE Slipcase.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 211 more reviews...
 The most underrated Zeppelin album, and their last great one September 6, 2008
J. Miller (East Hartford, CT United States)
Released in 1976, Led Zeppelin's 7th album has always been unfairly overlooked by fans and critics who'd expected another epic along the lines of their previous album "Physical Graffiti". And were seemingly disappointed by the even stranger than normal artwork (what was that black thing anyway?) and just seven songs. It was if the band had taken a "ho-hum" approach to their albums. They knew ANYTHING they released was guaranteed to sell a million copies in its first week. Seven songs? Who did they think they were, Steely Dan? Add to this the rise of punk rockers in England who regarded Zeppelin as boring old farts whose demise couldn't come fast enough. Relations within the band were tense as well. Robert Plant had been in a near fatal car wreck in Greece and practically recorded the entire album in a wheelchair. Jimmy Page and John Bonham's dalliances with heroin had turned into full-fledged addictions. And John Paul Jones felt his role in the band was merely taken for granted. So the band was in an unfamiliar position; backs to the wall and needing a strong album to prove they still had "it" in them. To do this, the band decamped to Munich's Musicland Studios and pushed themselves to deliver a new album in (for them) a record time of 2 weeks, as the Rolling Stones were due to arrive and start their next album. Legend has it that Page completed all the guitar overdubs in one night; then asked Mick Jagger for one extra day of studio time. Jagger agreed, and when he arrived Page proudly told him the album was finished;
Jagger: "Oh, you got the basic tracks done?"
Page: "No, the ENTIRE album is done."
This was at a time when the Stones needed two weeks to record ONE song.
"Presence" is a different album because of this. The proto-hippie acoustic tunes of the past are nowhere to be found here. This is a much tougher sounding and uncompromising album as a result starting with the opener. "Achilles Last Stand" is probably the longest song they've ever recorded at nearly 11 minutes of soaring vocals, galloping guitars, rock bottom bass and machine gun drums. "Nobody's Fault But Mine" is without a doubt one of the best songs they ever recorded with it's heavily phased guitar intro and Plant's wail of a deal he wants out of (Drugs or the Devil?) before it slams into a thunderous groove that only stops for a second as Plant quietly laments; "nobody's fault but mine". Though they were never a singles band, "Candy Store Rock" really could've been a hit single as the band do their best impression of a Sun Records rockabilly act. "Hots on for Nowhere" is Robert Plant strutting his stuff vocally while John Bonham lays down a shuffle straight out of the James Brown school of drumming. I have to say that the sound quality of "Tea for One" is remarkable and harkens back to the smooth drum sound the band had on its early albums before it drops into a slow melancholy blues that seems to say that the band was tired and that bad times were coming soon. Those bad times were the '77 tour that saw fan riots, hard drugs everywhere, and the death of Plant's son. Jimmy Page seems to have pulled out all the stops here and used every guitar trick he could think of. IMO, If Zeppelin had stopped here, their place in rock history would've been solid. If any album in the Zeppelin catalog could be called a letdown, it was "In Through the Out Door".
Led Zeppelin Presence August 22, 2008
Jason Jeter (Dallas, TX., USA)
Presence
This is a no brainer for Zeppelin fans, you must have this! This album was all page. With Robert Plant in a wheel chair from his crash, Jimmy Page put this album together in only 16 days. The riffs are unforgetable and with pure Led Zeppelin energy.
Presence (***1/2) August 9, 2008
Morton (Colorado)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Led Zeppelin-Presence (***1/2)
I usually go through phases with Zeppelin. Long periods of not wanting to hear them but still giving them credit for being one of the greatest bands of all time, and then short (make that extremely short) periods of time where I listen to Led Zeppelin so much I get really sick of them. This just might be the only album in the bands canon that doesn't follow into either of those categories. I think that is due to the fact that I truly believe both Jimmy Page and John Bonham are at their all time best here, this album contains two absolute Zeppelin classics, and what I consider to be their all time best, and the fact that is just an average album which I only pull out once in a blue moon.
Firstly Robert Plant is great when he sticks to one note and doesn't' vary in range. It bothers me to no end when he tries to be a vocal acrobat. The songs that are good here are mainly when he stays to one thing, the ones that are not, are the ones that he makes his voice go through everything he did on Houses Of The Holy all over again. As I said before Page kills on this album. His slide playing is nothing to bark at, simply the best. His lead playing on songs like 'For Your Life' and 'Hots On For Nowhere' is some of his best. Bonham just plays solid fills throughout the album and great rhythm all over. John Paul Jones completely owns as always, especially on 'For Your Life.'
'Achilles Last Stand' is to me without competition Led Zeppelins very best song. Better than 'Stairway..' 'Whole Lotta Love' 'Black Dog' or anything else you through out. The entire band is at their top and kill the track. With ten minutes length it manages to not get boring, which is unusual for Zepp. 'Nobody's Fault But Mine' is not the bands best, but it is my favorite Zepp song. Killer guitar from Page and his lyrics are perfect for Plants pipes to let rip over. It is a stellar tune! 'For Your Life' is a solid rock n' roller. 'Royal Orleans' was a nice idea, and has a good feel as well as some great guitar and bass, but doesn't fully deliver like it should. 'Candy Store Rock' feels nice but seems unfinished, as does 'Tea For One' which is strange because of it's nearly ten minute length. 'Hots On For Nowhere' is a odd one. It isn't likable by any standards, and yet it is not awful by any standards either.
I will say this though. Presence has the best production out of the whole lot of their records, hands down!
I always felt like Led Zeppelin was capable of so much more than what they did which always left me feeling cold and let down. Presence did just what I thought it would do. It is a solid rock n' roll album, nothing more, nothing less, and that is okay.
 One of Zeppelin's least rewarding overall August 5, 2008
finulanu (In my own little world)
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
More obsessive Zeppelin fans than I have sort of claimed this album as their own. They can keep it, far as I'm concerned. It's not bad or anything, but there's not much to really recommend here, either.
Still, the record does contain two great songs. Their names are... "Candy Store Rock" and "Tea for One!" Whoo! No, actually, those songs suck. "Candy Store Rock" is stiff, ham-fisted rockabilly, and "Tea for One" is one of the worst songs I've ever heard in my life. It's a nine-minute blues so similar to "Since I've Been Loving You" (only with guitars replacing the organ and without the big emotional release), that it might as well be a remix. Plant's lyrics are cliched as ever, and Page's lengthy solo is just him taking a bunch of trite blues licks and stringing them together. No good.
No, the best songs on this album are "Achilles Last Stand" and "Nobody's Fault but Mine." On "Achilles," Page goes insane with the guitar overdubs, letting loose a career's worth of brilliant riffs in ten minutes. It's got time signature changes, guitar solos, galloping bass parts, and sections where the band morphs into a jackhammer. "Nobody's Fault But Mine," meanwhile, is a Blind Willie Johnson blues that lets Page and Plant show off their skills on guitar and harmonica, respectively. But the real appeal of the tune is in the pauses. which make the heavy parts of the song sound even heavier.
The remaining three songs I could do without. There's some interesting guitar stuff on both "For Your Life" and "Royal Orleans" (both concerning the group's assorted misadventures with decadence), and I appreciate how they kinda change things up on "Orleans" with odd drumming, but neither of them are impressive. I would hesitate to even call them "good." Mediocre, maybe. I actually kind of like "Hots on for Nowhere." It's moderately funky, and has a catchy nonsense chorus. But it's by no means great.
So there you have it. "Achilles" and "Nobody's Fault" rule, "Tea for One" and "Candy Store Rock" suck, and the rest is in the middle. I can't think of any reason to buy it, seeing that both the great songs always make it onto compilations. And did you know "Candy Store Rock" was released as a single? Yikes...
influential and overlooked July 9, 2008
Booker T.
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A local classic rock radio outlet favors lite songs out of the Zep catalog - "Over the Hills and Far Away" and D'yer Maker?"...nothing out of the angst-filled Presence makes the cut by that standard. This is Zep for after the party's over and the girls have gone home and you're just a guy who wants to conquer the world with his beatup six-string. And of course if you're a punk, retro or not, you want to stomp all over rich rock star angst with your gnarly thrash boots, even if the angst is heartfelt and produces an underrated rock gem.
"Achilles Last Stand" easily dominates this album, and quite a few fans will buttonhole you about the song's merits if given encouragement. Plant meditates on (rock) heroism and mortality (I like the caterwauling vocalizations), Jones fills all available sonic space with bass and (I think) subtle Rhodes piano. Bonham gallops and marches and plays the "lots of birds were flown" "boompity boompity boom!" figure. Page plays a nice solo, reminiscent of a heroic aria, and it fits right in with the tone of the song. Typically, Page introduces several distinct hard-to-reproduce-live guitar voices. Also, I think the song may have the best use of fade-out (and fade-in), and this was a time when a fadeout at the end of your ten minute rock epic was perfectly acceptable.
I understand Zep used some sped-up tape to move the pace of the song along, which I'm sure isn't proper speed metal protocol AT ALL, but I think this 1976 tune sent a lot of rock rhythm players to the woodshed to help spawn the "British New Wave of Heavy Metal" which in turn spawned Bay Area speed metal in the Eighties, and various metal/hardcore cross-pollinations thereafter.
Recommended. Album tracks range from excellent to okay, but "Achilles" is a must-listen for a young rocker who has ambitions about virtuosity, longer forms and deeper textures.
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