Zeppelin seemed to be entering a fascinating new phase with 1979’s synth-injected In Through the Out Door, before Bonham’s untimely death a year later brought the band to a sudden end.

You can hear that cinematic sensibility take root in the brain-scrambling breakdown of “Whole Lotta Love” (as avant-garde as blues-rock boogie could get in 1969) and achieve its apex on 1975’s “Kashmir”, an epic Eastern-inspired odyssey where Jones’ sinister, Mellotron-manipulated string arrangement proved heavier than any guitar-powered rocker in their repertoire. Plus, Page was not only a redoubtable riff machine, but a visionary producer who reimagined the rock album as a widescreen war epic. But his obsession with psychedelic-folk acts like The Incredible String Band yielded a deep well of tender acoustic serenades, and he swiftly outgrew the girl-done-me-wrong narratives of the blues to weave Tolkien-esque tales that presaged metal’s fascination with medieval mythology. Sure, the group’s golden-god frontman, Robert Plant, possessed a shriek that could summon a fleet of rampaging Vikings (see: 1970’s “Immigrant Song”). But their thundering sound was always balanced by a disarming delicacy-best exemplified by the quiet-to-loud ascension of their perennial classic-rock-radio countdown winner, “Stairway to Heaven”. If heaviness was Zeppelin’s only attribute, their place in rock history would still be assured. In Page’s hands, blues-based riffs became as wildly complex as his solos, while the rhythm section featured a drummer (John Bonham) whose kick-pedal could leave craters and a secret-weapon bassist (John Paul Jones) who served as the industrial-strength glue that held it all together. Whether you’ve invested in high quality audio equipment like high-res headphones, home theater systems or a hi-res music player system, you want the songs and other audio you play to sound as awesome as the artist originally intended. However, no other group wielded their might with such an authoritative sense of groove and grandeur. About: iTrax offers high definition audio and video downloads with surround sound (no, this isn’t just for movies anymore). Formed by latter-day Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page in 1968 (originally as The New Yardbirds), the quartet were among a wave of bands taking the blues-based British Invasion sound in a louder direction. It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say Led Zeppelin invented heavy metal.

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