Across their first four albums, Led Zeppelin had rocked harder and explored more than any band before them.

It was a double-edged sword. They had created some of the most indelible songs in rock and roll history. But how were they supposed to top “Stairway to Heaven”?

They wouldn’t, actually.

And in my (admittedly limited—I’ve never heard Physical Graffiti) experience with their discography, Houses of the Holy is the first album that doesn’t top the one before it, beginning a long downward descent.

Which doesn’t mean it’s a bad album. Not by any stretch. But any album that features either “The Crunge” or “D’yer Mak’er” is going to suffer—and this has both.

Houses of the Holy finds the foursome pressing further still into studio experimentation.

And to great effect. “The Song Remains the Same” and “The Rain Song” open the album with some of their most intricate composition. “Over the Hills and Far Away” is a top-tier Zeppelin song. “No Quarter,” with an extended piano section, is a heavy, plodding masterpiece. And on accident—Jimmy Page tried to lower the pitch by a half step in post-production and slowed the whole song down. “The Ocean” is a riffy rocker that easily could have fit on Led Zeppelin II. 

This is so close to being a perfect album. But those two terrible tracks ruin the whole thing. “The Crunge” is almost unlistenable. “D’yer Mak’er” is entirely uninspired.

It’d be easy to discount them as bad filler tracks, except that for some Golden God-forsaken reason, they released them as a double single.

But if you can ignore those two unabashedly awful songs, Houses of the Holy is a classic that deserves all of its acclaim.