546. Led Zeppelin / In Through the Out Door. 1979. 2/5

Even though I have never been a great lover of Led Zeppelin’s music, I have always been able to appreciate it, especially their better known hits. This album, however, seems to have little or no inspiration in it, and as a result comes across as a lame and flaccid release.

Compared to the ground breaking efforts that Led Zeppelin made early in their recording career, this is just average. Not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, but just a run-of-the-mill one that suffers more for the name of the band that recorded it than the material it contains. Certainly, listening to the album again today, none of the songs jumped out at me as memorable in any fashion. Probably its most damning critique.

This was the last in the line for Led Zeppelin. One wonders if they would have progressed on even if John Bonham had not passed on following this album. If this was what they had to offer in the future, it is probably not a bad thing to have ended when they did.

Rating: Very average fare. 2/5.