Latter Days

The front cover of Latter Days (The Best Of Led Zeppelin Volume Two) features the quartet dressed as astronauts, which is quite apt. This was the '70s, when the Zep went interstellar, and the only thing bigger than the band were the hair-dos.

This isn't the lean, mean Zep of 'Communication Breakdown' or 'Black Dog': this is the rather more bloated behemoth that tinkered with Eastern melodies ('Kashmir') before Crispian Mills was out of short pants.

It's hard to hold that against them, though, when you hear the spine-tingling 'No Quarter', John Paul Jones' finest hour. Then there's the brilliant 'The Song Remains The Same', the pulsating 'Trampled Underfoot', and the magnificent 'In The Evening'.

Punk railed against bands like Zeppelin and, yeah, it's easy to dismiss them as tab-dropping, Tolkien-quoting dinosaurs, but they were consumate musicians, from Page's truly electric fret-work to Plant's Valkyrie yell.

This album features little of their folky side, and also fails to register their forays into other musical forms, such as the hilarious 'D'Yer Maker', but it is still a reasonably accurate 10-song synopsis of the second half of their decade at the top.

Even at their swansong, Zeppelin could still take your breath away.