I’m curious about what Dopers here think of this record?
Meh.
It’s better than Physical Graffiti. I never listen to it straight through. Kinda blah, but not horrible. It’s no Coda.
Liked most of it. LZ is hit or miss for me these days, can’t listen to an entire album in one sitting anymore, combination of eardrum fatigue and attention span militates against it. Achilles’ Last Stand and Nobody’s Fault But Mine really stand out.
Yeah, 4d3fect summed it up for me. Achilles’ Last Stand and especially Nobody’s Fault But Mine stand out as shining moments of their later career. That said, the other songs aren’t bad. Those two are what make me want to pull that record out, because the rhythm section is just on. But if I leave the side on after the first track, I usually enjoy myself a lot. That record has some of the Jimmy Page-est Jimmy Page guitar riffs on it.
I probably like it better than Led Zeppelin III when the rubber meets the road.
A few good tracks, but overall? Pretty bad. Definitely the worst Zeppelin album.
In Through the Out Door*** wasn’t great either, but was much better than Presence. Regardless, I think Zeppelin had about run out of gas. Tragic as it was, Bonham’s death broke the band up at just the right time. If he’d lived, they might have plodded on for ages like the Who, making terrible albums but packing arenas as a nostalgia act.
Robert Plant definitely made better records as a solo act than he would have with an ongoing Zeppelin.
I love Zep, but I can’t listen to anything after Physical Graffiti. Not a fan of Presence at all.
Presence came out when I was a freshman in High School, and was on Casey Casem’s weekly top 40 as #1 for a long time. Later I didn’t listen to music for about 20 years, and then relistened to the Zep collection. I was completely surprised to find that Presence is the albumn I listen to a LOT.
I would love to answer the question. I listened to a hell of a lot of LZ as a young teen and even know some odd bits of trivia due to the hyperfan boyfriend with whom I listened to it. Unfortunately I never know what most of the songs are called because(it seems like) the title almost never has anything to do with any of the lyrics. I recognize the album cover but looking at the track listing means nothing to me. I’m gonna go with “need pot to fully enjoy” 
Yea, kinda meh about that one. Robert Plant exemplifies his singing/writing of nonsense on this platter. Not that it was much of a challenge for him.
But I’ve got to give props to “For Your Life”. That is a showcase of John Bonham’s mastery of the drum kit. Along these same lines, one shouldn’t overlook “Nobody’s Fault but Mine”. I mean, there’s lots of reasons to overlook it, but the drummin’ ain’t one of them.
Any way you list it, Physical Graffiti was going to be hard to follow.
Back when **Idle Thoughts ** was posting comments on each LZ album as he listened to them for the first time, I said not to bother with “Presence”. Other than “Achilles’ Last Stand”, the album sounds to me as if they were just making it up on the fly. And yet, I still have my copy, and have gotten rid of albums that I hated less. So go figure.
It’s fine, but I don’t listen to much off of it. As others have said, Physical Graffiti did it for me. So much I love on that album.
I like it a lot too, mostly because I listened to all the other albums obsessively (yes, on 8-track) as a teen (except In Through The Out Door, because every song except “Carouselambra” got excessive radio play in the NY area - my vote for worst LZ album) and only owned it on CD when I was much older.
Then again, none of the tracks are as good as “Darlene” on Coda.