I can try.
I think Moby Dick was the heaviest they ever got, and it only seems that way because of the absence of Plant's vocals. But nothing in it really screams metal. The drumming is typical of blues rock (including the solo), the bass is moderate and the guitar distorted very mildly. When you compare this, the heaviest of Zeppelin's songs, to stuff from Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, or Judas Priest, you can hear a huge discrepancy in the gravity of the sound. Whereas Zeppelin was steeped in blues rock, those other bands used distortion and amplification to create a thick, massive sound, something that Led Zeppelin never really achieved.
I understand how big of an influence on modern metal Led Zeppelin was. In fact, some of their songs were actually ported in a heavy metal vein (just look at the differences between Tool's version of No Quarter and the original). But nothing Zeppelin ever did - even in comparison with the first heavy metal bands - could really be called heavy metal.
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