In this wickedly entertaining and thoroughly informed homage to one of
rock music's towering pinnacles, Erik Davis investigates the magic-black
or otherwise-that surrounds this album. Carefully peeling the layers
from each song, Davis reveals their dark and often mystical roots-and
leaves the reader to decide whether [FOUR SYMBOLS] is some form of
occult induction or just an inspired, brilliantly played rock album.
Excerpt:
Stripping Led Zeppelin's famous name off the fourth record was an almost
petulant attempt to let their Great Work symbolically stand on its own
two feet. But the wordless jacket also lent the album charisma. Fans
hunted for hidden meanings, or, in failing to find them, sensed a
strange reflection of their own mute refusal to communicate with the
outside world. This helped to create one of the supreme paradoxes of
rock history: an esoteric megahit, a blockbuster arcanum. Stripped of
words and numbers, the album no longer referred to anything but itself:
a concrete talisman that drew you into its world, into the frame. All
the stopgap titles we throw at the thing are lame: Led Zeppelin IV,
[Untitled], Runes, Zoso, Four Symbols. In an almost Lovecraftian
sense, the album was nameless, a thing from beyond, charged with manna.
And yet this uncanny fetish was about as easy to buy as a jockstrap.
