Houses of the Holy:

Led Zeppelin. Atlantic.

Doremi Latido Fasol:

Hawk wind. United Artists. Reviewed by P.F. O'Dea.

Two unmitigated disasters: one from a group that should know better, and one from a group that should never have been allowed near a recording studio in the first place.

With a couple of exceptions, "Houses of the Holy" is a pale shadow of Led Zeppelin's former glory. To get straight to the heart of the matter, the music has lost the spontaneity and excitement that was in evidence on their previous efforts, a failing that can be attributed to the 17 months spent in production. To retain any semblance of freshness over that period is a task to rule out any but the great, and Zep just don't make it.

The lethargy that shrouds the music has also extended to the vocals. Plant's voice one so powerful has degenerated into strained and unconvincing shouting. Mind you, if you had to deliver these lyrics — an illiterate hodge podge that veers between uncomfortably psuedo— mysticism and inane banality — you'd sound unconvinced too.

Two forays into alien territory — those of reggae and electronics — could have served to alleviate the tedium, but didn't. "D'yer maker", the reggae track can be classed as the ultimate Zeppelin atrocity, while "No Quarter" drags you unpleasantly back to the bad old days when synthesisers were being used as effects machines rather than as instruments in their own right. Not only unmusical, but downright horrible, it annoys hell out of me. I really did prefer them as plagiarists of Robert Johnson.

Hawkwind are worse, if that's possible. "Doremi..." is totally devoid of anything that's inventive or even remotely interesting. It's just a sixth-rate collection of puerile psychedelia that drags on interminably. In a nutshell, Beatles/Badfingcr equals Pink Floyd/Hawkwind. Save your money for "Dark Side of the Moon".