Zooma

While Jimmy Page and Robert Plant carried on the Zep torch with hit-and-miss projects such as the Firm, the Honeydrippers, Coverdale/Page, and Page/Plant, John Paul Jones got his hands artistically dirty, producing the Butthole Surfers' Independent Worm Saloon, working on film soundtracks, and collaborating with radical punk diva Diamanda Galas. Not surprisingly, several of the tracks on Jones's gutsy first solo album, Zooma, breathe post-punk fire: the pile-driving title track, wrapped in a gurgling sound collage, pummels a JPJ bass riff with a "sick guitar solo" by the Surfers' Paul Leary. Jones reclaims Zeppelin as his own even as he transcends it. "Snake Eyes", an eerie blues epic arranged with orchestral strings around Jones's superb organ playing, suggests "When the Levee Breaks" filtered through Igor Stravinsky or Bernard Herrmann; and you can't miss the echoes of "Trampled Under Foot" in the bass figures of "B. Fingers". The instrumental Zooma reinforces Jones's integral role in Zeppelin, his influential and still vital bass playing, and his... well, balls. --James Rotondi

Label: Unknown
Studio: Discipline
Released: 2002-07-01
Format: Audio CD