Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin

Houses of the Holy, Led Zeppelin's fifth album and the follow-up to their untitled fourth, came out on Atlantic on 28 March 1973 in America, with Jimmy Page producing and Eddie Kramer mixing. Two of the band had built studios at home by then, and the extra room to tinker shows: this is Zeppelin stretching out, trying on new colors and dressing up the thunder with far more elaborate arrangements.

Robert Plant sings, Page plays guitar, John Paul Jones handles bass and keyboards and John Bonham pounds the drums, and nobody else is on it. "The Song Remains the Same" bolts out of the gate in a blur of chiming guitars, "The Rain Song" drifts and sighs, and "No Quarter" is a creeping, fog-bound nightmare; all three became staples of the live show. Then they loosen up: "The Crunge" and "D'Yer Maker" find the band clowning around on lopsided, loose-limbed grooves, and "Over the Hills and Far Away" and "Dancing Days" rock hard with a grin. The title track, oddly, didn't make it on and waited until Physical Graffiti in 1975, and other leftovers turned up on Coda in 1982.

The Hipgnosis cover, the band's first from the design firm, was based on a photograph taken at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. The critics were split, the public wasn't: by 1999 it had been certified diamond, with 10 million or more sold in America alone.

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