LED ZEPPELIN – Physical Graffiti [50th Anniversary Edition] (2025)

LED ZEPPELIN is celebrating the 50th anniversary of their iconic sixth album, ”Physical Graffiti”, with the release of their new ”Live E.P.” that we featured in exclusive three days ago. And of course its accompanied by “Physical Graffiti [50th Anniversary Edition]“, a remaster of the double album plus extra material, now including a new bonus replica ‘Physical Graffiti promotional poster’.

Regarded as one of the greatest double albums of all time, the original 15 tracks represent a creative tour de force that explores the band’s dynamic musical range, from the driving rock of “Custard Pie” to the exotic construction of “Kashmir” and the funky groove of “Trampled Under Foot.”
”Physical Graffiti” isn’t part of the rock continuum. It didn’t especially pave the way for anything, but it isn’t a mere marker of its era. It hasn’t dated. It’s outside of the rock timeline, a gigantic, impermeable musical achievement, which has intensified with age.
Certainly, that’s the verdict on the first disc of the original double album. The second disc is less mountainous, ranging from the wistful acoustic fragment of ”Bron-Y-Aur” to the saloon bar knees-up ”Boogie With Stu” featuring Rolling Stones piano player Ian Stewart.

Its momentousness is very much frontloaded. ‘In My Time Of Dying” is the blackest of blues, conveyed in the jet-slide scrawls of Jimmy Page’s guitar as Robert Plant conveys mounting anxiety as the moment of meeting his maker approaches.
”Trampled Underfoot”, driven by John Paul Jones’s electric keyboards, sets a vicious new boogie benchmark, while ”Kashmir” is a magisterial caravan procession eastward, anticipating world musics yet to come. Sequentially, it perhaps should have been the last track on the album, the ultimate expression of Zeppelin’s heaviness and light.

Among the additional tracks there’s an interesting rough orchestra mix of ‘Kashmir’ which is is called “Driving Through Kashmir”, an early mix of ‘Trampled Under Foot’ titled “Brandy & Coke” and a ‘overdubs’ version of “Houses of the Holy”.
Perhaps the most revealing track is the rough, almost-skeletal-at-times version of ‘In the Light’ titled “Everybody Makes It Through” presenting a real new light to this tune.
The rough mix of “Trampled Under Foot,” which puts more focus on Robert Plant‘s appealingly abrasive vocals, also gives the band a vicious and rugged edge that would be explored more deeply on Physical Graffiti‘s follow-up, the next year’s Presence.

As for the live EP, a 1975 Earls Court version of ”In My Time Of Dying” misses those impossible-to-achieve-outside-the-studio diving slides during the solo sections, but does feature a nice ‘dying’ moment. ”Trampled Underfoot”, from the same gig, is dominated by Page’s guitars, and rocks.
Two 1979 Knebworth recordings, slicker, fuller than the 1975 ones, are dominated John Bonham’s pulverising percussion, first on ”Sick Again” and then ”Kashmir”, practically breaking through the audio screen with his power, so ironically few months away from his own time of dying.
A must have album in your collection.

01 – Custard Pie (Remaster)
02 – The Rover (Remaster)
03 – In My Time of Dying (Remaster)
04 – Houses of the Holy (Remaster)
05 – Trampled Under Foot (Remaster)
06 – Kashmir (Remaster)

01 – In the Light (Remaster)
02 – Bron-Yr-Aur (Remaster)
03 – Down by the Seaside (Remaster)
04 – Ten Years Gone (Remaster)
05 – Night Flight (Remaster)
06 – The Wanton Song (Remaster)
07 – Boogie with Stu (Remaster)
08 – Black Country Woman (Remaster)
09 – Sick Again (Remaster)

01 – Brandy & Coke (Trampled Under Foot; Initial / Rough Mix)
02 – Sick Again (Early Version)
03 – In My Time of Dying (Initial / Rough Mix)
04 – Houses of the Holy (Rough Mix with Overdubs)
05 – Everybody Makes It Through (In the Light; Early Version / In Transit)
06 – Boogie with Stu (Sunset Sound Mix)
07 – Driving Through Kashmir (Kashmir Rough Orchestra Mix)

John Bonham – drums, percussion
Jimmy Page – electric, acoustic, lap steel and slide guitar, mandolin
Robert Plant – vocals, harmonica, acoustic guitar on “Boogie with Stu”
John Paul Jones – bass, organ, piano, mellotron, mandolin

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