Review: ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ brings riffage and volume but little in the way of fresh insight
LA TimesThere’s pummeling hard rock, yes, and then there’s the nuclear-grade explosion of Shirley Bassey performing the theme to “Goldfinger” — a whole separate beast. In one of pop music’s oddest confluences, future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones sat in on that 1964 recording session, years before the band came together. The two musicians remember Bassey’s command with smiles on their faces in the new documentary “Becoming Led Zeppelin,” still blown away. Almost every track of the band’s first two full-lengths is a miracle and you can hear the rules of metal being forged in songs like “Communication Breakdown” and “Whole Lotta Love.” But as any superfan will tell you, “Becoming Led Zeppelin” ends when things are just about to get interesting: a pivot to acoustic folk, a plunge into drug abuse and bad decisions — and even more terrific music.
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