Presence

Even though this is an obscure album by Led Zeppelin’s standard every cut is outstanding and definitely worthy of any classic rock collection. My favorite track is Nobody’s Fault But Mine.

I had read about this in a Jimmy Page article in Guitar Player magazine and Jimmy said it was probably his favorite recording so I figured if he said that it must be good and it certainly was. If you’re a die hard Zeppelin fan you should get this it is really good.

Could very well be so. I know it's Pagey's 2nd favorite LZ record. For me, "Achilles Last Stand" is possibly the best song the band ever composed. Yes, better than "Stairway." Only "Kashmir" rivals it. It is the ultimate demonstrate of what a musician can do with an electric guitar in a great sounding studio. The song has innumerable overdubs which were improvised on one evening on the spot. "For Your Life" features what might be the most underrated Page riff ever. "Royal Orleans" is a funny based on true life stories of the band. It's a superior "funk" song than "The Crunge." Plant feels "Candy Store Rock" is one of Zep's greatest songs of all time (see Uncle Joe's Guide on Hard Rock Bands, Vol. 1). "Nobody Knows but Mine" speaks for itself. Another great tune with amazing guitar overdubs. "Hots on for No One" goes back to the "Dazed and Confused" jams of the early 70's. I know this sounds nuts, but is feel the closing track, "Tea for One," is the best blues that LZ ever composed because it is so TRUE. It so heartbreakingly speaks of Plant's isolation in L.A. while his wife was suffering from life threatening injuries. Around 1997 British taxed successful rock artists/bands at a 90%+ rate. He was forced to relocate. At the time he wasn't sure if he wanted to continue with Zep - it took Bonham's persuasion to get him to return to the band. So, it wasn't like he could afford to bite the bullet with the tax issue. Queen, Bowie, the Stones, Yes, Genesis, and innumerable artists/bands had to live outside of Britain at the time until the English government came to its senses. To sum it all up, "Presence" is the most REAL and HONEST record they ever made. It also brought them back to the "Led Zeppelin II" days in terms of its rawness, although the album features what is possibly Pagey's best studio guitar orchestration in his recording career.

Brand new and factory sealed

The best Presence has ever sound. I'm disappointed that webpage implied it came with the companion disc of material. My order did not. It was only the original album.

I liked the whole album.

Recently discovered that all of my original first pressing Led Zep albums had been stolen from my collection. Can only say the thief had good taste. Long story as to why I did not notice before now and will not go into that here. This led me to begin replacing my Zeppelin albums. I have collected many LPs for over five and almost 6 decades. Presence was not known to be the greatest of Zeppelin albums and many critics panned it when it first hit the stores. I am here to tell you that this remastered version by Jimmy Page sounds amazing. Regardless of opinion this recording rocks and Jimmy did an amazing job. The album is crystal clear and soaring highs and lows. If you don't think this album sounds great upgrade your equipment, because that has to the problem or get your ears looked at. I recommend you purchase this album if you are a Zeppelin fan or even the box set.

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. Each of these three -- "Royal Orleans," "Candy Store Rock," "Hots on for Nowhere" -- plays as snappily as the throwaways on the second half of Physical Graffiti, containing a sexy insouciance; the band almost seems to shrug off how catchy Page's riffs and how thick the grooves of John Bonham and John Paul Jones actually are. No matter how much fun this triptych is, they're lost underneath the shadow of "Achilles Last Stand," a ten-minute exercise in self-styled moody majesty and the turgid blues crawl of closer "Tea for One." In between, there are two unalloyed masterpieces that channel all of the pain of the period into cinematic drama: a molten blues called "Nobody's Fault But Mine" and "For Your Life," as sharp, cinematic, and pained as Zeppelin ever were. Added together, Presence winds up as something less than the sum of its parts but its imbalance also means that it's a record worth revisiting; it seems different upon each revisit and is always compelling.