Presence

Created at a time of intense turmoil for Led Zeppelin - they scrapped a planned international tour in the wake of Robert Plant's car accident in Greece in August 1975 - Presence is a strange, misshapen beast of a record that pulls upon its own tension. With Plant somewhat on the sidelines - he recorded many of the vocals while in a wheelchair - Jimmy Page reasserted himself as the primary creative force in the band, helping steer Presence toward a guitar-heavy complexity, perched halfway between a return to roots and unfettered prog. This dichotomy means it feels like Presence sprawls as wildly as Physical Graffiti even though it's half its length : the four epics tend to overshadow the trio of lean rockers that really do hark back to the Chess boogie and rockabilly that informed Zeppelin's earliest work.