The LoC (Line of Control) Basically the Tea Party’s own Song Remains The Same in my opinion. Somewhere between that and the Interzone from IZM album. A great way to kick off an album Black Sea Very powerful drumming intro, and introduces the first of many soundscapes that preceed songs. Its in these soundscapes that a whole plethora of world instruments can be found, while the main component of the album is very much guitar driven rock. This track took a while to grow on me, as I thought the chorus was a little too soft for the song. Cypher Again an awesome soundscape for about a minute before Burrows drums kick in. They are really a centrepiece of this whole album, and I’d agree that he’s the greatest living drummer at the moment, certainly the most interesting to listen to. The eastern vibe permeates throughout this song, and there’s some extremely effective percussion (djembe etc) in the background which adds so much depth to the sound. There’s a great but short guitar break that reminded me of Walk With Me from EOT, with its multi layering, and then an awesome reversed guitar solo. This to me sounds very much like ‘New Tea Party’ with homages to their past but feeling very contemporary. Standout track. The Maker This is major dud number one on the album for me. This song has a long history with the tea party, its been in their live set on and off since the beginning usually as part of the Save Me live medley. There is also another official release of this on a Triple J Like A Version compilation, which is an acoustic version. This arrangement sounds weak, over produced and just plain cheesy. The double tracked vocals don’t work and its already become the one track that will guarantee a fwd. Its almost redeemed by the tremolo guitar solo at the end, but its too brief, and too far into the track for me to venture. Disappointing. Black Roses When I first listened to this I thought it was going to be cheesy rock ballad, but it kept on surprising me. It has a very Zepp feel to it in the arrangement, and even an obvious homage to Hey Hey What Can I Do in the outro. There’s lots of sounds going on in this one, so many layered guitars, and its very interesting. Its let down, as are other parts of the album, by some weak lyrics. Gone are the mysticism and darkness of yesteryear, replaced with some fairly basic lost love songs and clichéd metaphor. Nevertheless it’s a good track. Brazil has some great percussion on it, very South American feel, which is a nice little deviation from the norm. Lyrically it stumbles a little, and is often too self referential “Sister, don’t lose control” – spot the references to previous TTP tracks. This happened to a larger degree on 7C, like the opening verse of coming back again. Again a very multi layered track, with a subtle horn section complementing the feel. 11th Hour The soundscape intro to this is awesome and had me recalling their first albums. It has some very subtle bowed guitar and drums, like and some background sitar-esque drone. The main riff of the song is great, almost reminiscent of Gyroscope from transmission. Chunky verse, nice chorus and an interesting guitar break that conjures up zeppelin (as do many parts of this album) Submission Took me ages to work out why this sounded so familiar…it is basically their interpretation of Gary Newman’s Cars. This is a very transmission era sounding track and again I’d put in the category of “New tea party”, reflective but modern. Should be a powerful live track, probably alongside (or within, or absorbing) Temptation Cass Corridor This ones a bit of fun, which seems odd for such a serious faced band. This would have fitted nicely onto some of JM’s solo work. There’s some interesting time signatures in it (nothing as ambitious as their 1992 track The Timing Song, which is crazy). Blues rock with a great harmonica and some nice guitar runs. I don’t think it will have much longevity for me though Waters on Fire Still boring and cheesy. This is the second major dud on the album. In context of the rest of the album it sounds little more ‘in place’ than it did as their return single, but it doesn’t change the fact that its ballads-by-the-numbers and almost belittles the talent and originality of this band. Boring. The Ocean At The End This song covers a lot of ground in its 8 and a half minute ramble. Its very atmospheric and has some exceptionally Pink Floyd parts too it. The lyrics are, again, a little corny in places and while the guitar solo is a welcome return to JM showcasing his talents, its doesn’t do them justice. Its very stop/start in nature and doesn’t flow very well. He’s a tremendous player and I only feel he could have strung this solo together a little more coherently with less pauses and breaks and more fluidity. The last great solo he did was probably the fade out to 7C. Into the Unknown An instrumental experimental soundscape to end the album. It follows on nicely from TOATE track, but its hardly a go-to track in its own rights. An interesting way to finish the album, which strangely I enjoyed. General comments: Its awesome to have these guys back and the break has done them well. There are some truly great moments on this album and the song writing is generally very good. There’s some lyrical laziness by JM and that hampers the overall quality (fairly significantly in areas). The overall production is good and there are some particularly great sounding parts to it, along with some terrific arrangements of the tracks and multi layered guitar works. Parts of this album just scream out The Tea Party to and the intro soundscapes that start off most of these songs, and it’s a shame that they didn’t get further expansion. As a return album I think its very good, if a little too safe in places. I’d love them to develop these soundscapes a little more and maybe head off down a darker, diverse tangent for the next album. I would have preferred some more acoustic, world and experimental tracks, but I see this album as a real pivotal one to either an interesting, risk-taking future, or a safe one - the latter of which would take them dangerously close to generic rock territory again, like 7C, and they’re much better than that. Definitely not their best album, but certainly a strong contender and I'd put it above 7C and Triptych, and probably hovering equal with the Interzone Mantra's. It really doesn't reach the heights of SS and EOT in my opinion. Next stop is my limited green vinyl and seeing them in concert next month. Very exciting! Standouts: Cypher, The LoC, 11th Hour, Submission, The Ocean at the End, Black Sea Solid: Black Roses, Brazil, Dud: The Maker, Waters on Fire, possibly Cass Corridor in a few weeks

This cover is quite the departure from their previous ones. It's very colourful. Looking forward to seeing it up close on vinyl sleeve, but it's certainly not what I thought they'd go for! With regards to their album covers, Splendor Solis is one that I can just get lost in, even 20 years after first seeing it. The art style and imagery perfectly captures the dark organic essence of the record, which is quite possibly their best work. That said, I'm currently enjoying the Black Sea for what it is. There's shades of old styles and some new directions going on. I had a listen to the previews of the tracks on iTunes, and there's defintely some great sounding things. My only concern at the moment is the lyrics, which seem to occasionally veer into bad high school poetry territory They do appear to have abandoned the eastern instrumentation, which is a shame.

The whole album is up for pre-order on iTunes . Costs $16.99 in Australia, and you get two tracks now. Complete track listing: 1. The L.o.C (presumably this is Line of Control from the demos) 2. The Black Sea 3. Cypher 4. The Maker 5. Black Roses 6. Brazil 7. The 11th Hour 8. Submission 9. The Cass Corridor 10. Water's on Fire 11. The Ocean at the End 12. Into the Unknown

New album is out September. There's an Australian tour in October (I've got my tickets). There's another (and better) single out soon called The Black Sea, which I believe should have been their launch single...though apparently mastering had only recently finished. Very excited about the new album and the tour

I'm really not enjoying their new single. It's my worst fear, a cheesy ballad by the numbers. Completely doesn't showcase the bands skill or originality. I thought a 10 year absence would have heralded a much better 'first song' than this radio friendly snooze fest. It's like they are trying desperately to win over the mass population again with a safe song, like they attempted with 7C. Still excited about the album though. At least he's stopped wearing bandanas now.

Excellent researching. That video alone should be enough to knock this ridiculous claim out of the ball park. Though in reality it would probably just turn in to a litigation clusterf**k with everyone suing everyone else for a piece of the pie.

Splendid solis and the edges of twilight are up there with zeppelin's best, in my opinion. Seven circles was not a great album. At all. Filled with generic rock tracks and ballads with maybe one or two interesting tracks. They were trying to break the US market at the time, and it sounds like a completely different band to the one that started out. Also check out jeff martins solo album "the ground cries out", it's much better than 7circles

He should therefore post an anonymous story on this very thread about what happened, and use false comical names to throw people off the scent.

don't get me wrong, they are my all time top rated band, or very equally tied with Zepp and the mars volta, but I've learned to manage my Jeff Martin hype a little bit. He promised the world with Exile and the kingdom, called it his biggest rock record, which it certainly wasn't. Similar things with the Armada album and then the ground cries out - which admittedly was a good album, though achy with no longevity. He has a tendency to embellish about how dark and heavy something is only for him to deliver something fairly soft and a little disappointing.. Theres an emerging trend to move towards ballad rock, which I think will be prevalent on this new album too. For me what stood this band head and shoulders above all their contemporaries was their innovativeness in song structure and production. Tracks like Raven Skies, Certain Slant of Light, Walk With Me etc, just oozed originality and passion. Compared to Seven Circles, its chalk and cheese. Or chalk and shit perhaps. Can they capture the essence of the band again? I sincerely hope so it would be absolutely amazing. Am I looking forward to this? Shit yes! However I'm going to manage my expectations till the finished product is in my ears

Dazed from NY 12/2/75 Its a bit sloppy, but it is in excellent sound quality. The ends been dragged out a bit too long now...c'mon jimmy wrap it up.

Part time contributor, long time lurker, full time devourer of Zepp info. This forum has been invaluable to me and Knebby you are truly one of the most friendly polite and knowledgable posters. I value your uniquely insightful posts and just wanted to say thanks, and I hope to see many more. I hope you won't feel compelled to abstain because of a bunch of basement dwelling fuckwitts, pardon my French.

Earls court, last night. Bloody excellent. Does a decent sound source for tangerine and NQ exist? My version dips from sbd to aud for those two.

Sydney: hot and muggy. Again. Bring on the winter!

Rival sons. Pressure and time album. I've heard people on here rave about them, stating things like "they're the next zeppelin" but I really don't see it. They're ok but not really too original

If anyone's interested they are doing 3 acoustic shows (apparently like the Alhambra tour O Canada in 96) in Australia in March their Facebook page has details.

The keyboard solo ruined all my love completely. The extended solo-less version on the old Studio Daze bootleg, is infinitely better. And how many of us pull out Plant's early solo career stuff anymore? I can't because the production of some has dated horribly, and the quality of some was just awful...or I should say is now awful from a contemporary stance.

I thought about that, but I concluded that I'd wait for the definitive versions instead of re-buying in the interim. I will certainly check out the 90 second samples though. Unfortunately my window of ITTOD acceptance has nigh on closed again for now. It would just take one more twangy hillbilly encore of hot dog to slam it shut

I've tried again and again to enjoy this album, but I just can't find a way in. I've been trying again all last week, because I've been having a celebration day fuelled Zepp bonanza at the moment! The production is bad, and the sound is flat, which is in stark contrast to their debut 11 years before, which sounds incredible and still very contemporary. But the songwriting too is just not up to par. There's moments of utter brilliance, but not enough consistency or cohesion to bind it together, so it just falls flat - to me. I completely understand that they were a different band at this stage, dealing with all manner of conflict, alliances, emotions etc, but the album simply doesn't gel together. I also don't buy the "they set the bar so high with their previous work, but its still a great album". Unfortunately, I just don't see it. I can barely count on one hand any albums by anyone else (ever) that trump Zeppelins first 6. But I can probably list 100 that top ITTOD without racking my brains. For those of you who love it, I'm truly envious, and its not through lack of trying either. But I'm not calling it quits. I'll try again after the remastered-remastered-remasters

wasnt it rumoured that the Montreaux concerts could have been filmed and sat in Claude Nobs archive? Is it worth adding them to the list? http://www.led-zeppelin.org/joomla/current-news/1631-led-zeps-montreux-performances-to-be-online

so you adopted a cat on jimmy page's birthday which you called called zeppelin from a club called Howlin Wolf one day before the anniversary of Howlin' Wolf's death. If I was superstitious I would argue that you got the black cat out of there just in the nick of time.

some great videos and reviews coming out of the tour. The set list is basically a greatest hits package, which is expected. It would be great if they got it together for another album. Seven Circles was IMO a real bum note to finish on.

just acquired Baton Rouge 75 A great sounding show. There's a couple of wince inducing bum notes in The Rain Song, but otherwsie its sounding good so far

the hyphenation of the word unhappy made my unhappy today

I've been hammering the RAH 9/1/70 show. great stuff. Plant's voice is on top form