Whole Lotta Love starts with Charles West saying: "Let's see if you remember this one?" And then the guitar proceeds to hammer out the first lick and muffs one of the critical notes: duh-duh-da-da-doink. No, I don't remember that one. What follows is a nineteen minute plus medley including parts of Dazed and Confused. This was a song Zeppelin historically would break out and go in creative directions and it's nice to see this cover band attempting to catch this familiar Zep moment. It is reminiscent in the beginning of the version that Zeppelin used in their live Whole Lotta Love in The Song Remains The Same, only the version by Zeppelin is worlds apart better.

The song selection would also have been better if there would have been covers of All My Love, D'Yer Maker, Immigrant Song and where ... is ... Stairway to Heaven? Ok, I'm probably in the minority on the inclusion of Stairway, but if you are going to do a fitting tribute to Zeppelin, how can you *not* include Stairway to Heaven? It is in every classic rock top ten song of all time (usually #1). Then again, considering how the rest of this album turned out, rhythm section excluded, I can survive not hearing Stairway being butchered.

And what about the bass/keyboards by John Smithson? Besides Bonham who can't seem to buy a hit record, Smithson is certainly a bright spot in the total performance. He's no John Paul Jones (who was the original Zeppelin bass/keyboards) but he certainly doesn't embarrass himself like Charles West on vocals.

I'd give this effort three stars just because it was for charity and included Jason Bonham's outstanding and nearly perfect drumming, which is worth a four star grade with just him doing a Zep tribute by himself.

Unfortunately, there's no drum solo either (?!?!), so that knocks this project back down. Really, a tribute album to a great drummer with no drum solo? Zeppelin collectors will want this but casual Zeppelin fans should seek out and buy Great White's Zeppelin cover album instead.

If you were out at a club and heard The Jason Bonham Band live then you'd probably get into this, but as a recording it doesn't work even after the first listen, much less a second or third.

This review originally appeared at Things That ... Make You Go Hmm