Led Zeppelin – Untitled

You can’t go wrong with any of the Porky/GP (George Peckham, George Piros) pressings, I pick up every clean one I can find, and they all sound great, but this Shelley pressing is quieter than most and that is so important for this record - like immanipper said just before me, having quiet vinyl for Stairway to Heaven is key and VERY rare to find that on ANY copy. The copy I have is variant 3 with inverted “S” on side 2. Big vocals, huge bass, this is an excellent pressing to consider.

Shelley is the one to get. thick, dead quiet vinyl, cut hotter than Old Faithful with massive amounts of bass and midrange, and handles the inner grooves so much better than the other US pressings, Stairway is actually listenable here. No-brainer-and-a-half, get it if you see it.

Led Zeppelin - IV Shelley 1841 pressing

I have owned and heard dozens of pressings of this album. I’ve had the UK Plum, other Porky Pecko Ducks, weird variants, foreign pressings. I’ve heard even more others. This Shelley 1841 Broadway pressing blows every single one of them out of the water. It is close (but obviously not -quite- there, since it’s the same mix as other IV’s) to the difference between RL LZ II’s compared to other pressings of that album.

There is so little to be said about the music that hasn’t already been. It’s freaking Led Zeppelin. What more can you say? With that, IV was interesting as it was the first time that the group really took special care in the recording techniques and took consistency of recording in a full album into . But aside from that…there’s almost nothing more to be said about this album. It’s a timeless classic, an album that should be required listening for any up and coming rock musician (and other genres too).

As for this particular pressing, however, I am blown away by it. Why it’s not valued more, I do not know. There are actual parts of this album that I have never heard on any other pressing. Plant ad-libbing in the background during the guitar solo of Black Dog; what sounds like an acoustic guitar in the background of Rock and Roll; extra harmonies on The Battle of Evermore, and what sound like strings - viola???; strings on Stairway towards the very end of the big verse after the guitar solo???; a false start/headphone bleed on Misty Mountain Hop; extra acoustic guitars on Four Sticks, and those synths are BIG…and have extra notes I’ve never heard!; breaths at the beginning of Going to California; and if there’s any track that was surprisingly -exactly- as I it…it’s When the Levee Breaks. But that’s alright, because it still is as fierce and powerful as ever!

So with all of that…This pressing/version of IV is insanely good, unparalleled in my opinion, and I don’t see why it doesn’t cost more than it does. I’m grateful to have gotten it for the price that I did, because I feel it is worth much, much more than that. Go for this pressing before it’s price shoots up like the Alvear pressings of I, RL’s, plums, etc!

Music: 5/5
Mixing/mastering: 5/5
Packaging: 4/5
Pressing: 5/5

Equipment used: Pro-Ject The Classic SB SuperPack turntable, VAS custom wood-body Shure M91 MM cartridge with ML stylus, Pro-Ject Tube Box DS2 Preamp, Klipsch RP-8060FA floor tower speakers, Marantz SR6005 Stereo receiver

-Review by Linc Bradham

Brutal, powerful mastering. A great job by Mr. Peckham, maybe even a notch above his UK plum.

I'll never forget the first time I heard this album. My wife brought it home in the winter of 1971/1972 with a hit of purple mescaline that we shared. We listened to this album over and over again all night long with other friends that visited and brought their own acid. I still faintly flashback whenever I tune to the radio and any one of these songs are played. This was also one of the background albums I listened to while reading the Lord of the Ring books in 1972. Classic rock, indeed!