PINK FLOYD

(Robert Grazer's review)

In the beginning Pink Floyd was led by lead vocalist and guitarist Syd Barrett, who before falling off the deep end, took the band into the dark realms of psychedelia with this release. What makes this album so much different than any other album made from the band afterwards is the fact that Syd was the sole songwriter of the group (except for one tune by Roger Waters) on here, while Roger Waters on bass, and occasional vocals, Richard Wright on piano and organ, and Nick Mason on drums constituted the backbone of the group's haunting sound. The two singles preceding this album, "See Emily Play" and its' b-side "Arnold Layne", surely more than hinted at the songwriting talents of acid-head Syd, but it was here where his genius reached full flower.

This genius, which is his knack for writing the perfect twisted child-like ditty, along with lengthier experimental jams, is all showcased on this stunning album, which in turn may possibly be the most tripped-out of all the psychedelic gems from this period due to the echoey sound affects and Syds' schizophrenic and erratic guitar-work. One of the best examples of the bands erratic chemistry is in the opener "Astronomy Domine", which starts off with the sound of a man talking into a speaker against some keyboard bleeps, before the dark, brooding riff and loud drums come in to launch the song off. This masterful track, which really does seem to come out of nowhere, contains some completely crazy and erratic guitar jamming in the middle alongside some thumping bass. Eerie stuff.

One of the ultimate highlights comes in the following "Lucifer Sam", a scary and frightening pop tune, where an acid-drenched organ and dark, gloomy riff compliment each other very well against a sparse atmosphere filled with echoey sound effects. This tune is almost as creepy as the Kinks "Wicked Annabella", and probably just as good if not better. Equally as great, the melodic "Matilda Mother" is child-like and haunting at the same time, with its' story-tale lyrics and majestic organ sound carrying the tune, and a short instrumental break where the band makes some really neat sounds with their vocals. Barrett's "Flaming" is next, as a giddy tune with a ton of sound effects that eventually fade out the tune effectively, and then comes the oddly-named "Pow R. Toc H.", which itself is a fairly strange instrumental with a decent piano melody and some more out of this world vocal stylings from the band.

"Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" in turn is Roger Waters lone contribution to the album - but oh what a great tune it is. The chants of 'doctor, doctor' that follow after each simple line may be striking and neat-sounding, but the best part of the tune is the deliriously mad guitar and keyboard jamming in the middle of the tune. This wildly schizophrenic jam is one of the most exciting moments on the whole record, and propels the song wonderfully towards the end as Waters sings 'music seems to ease the pain...'. "Interstellar Overdrive" on the other hand, is quite a different affair, as it is a nine minute-plus experimental track with a huge sound collage of noises and effects.The riff in the beginning is just fantastic, but that's not all... the rest of the tune is actually a good example of what extended psychedelic music should sound like. It may be a tad overlong, but as the piece is effective in the hauntingly eccentric mood it creates(I love the various guitar pickings here), it rarely bores me.

Following this album centerpiece is one of the most fun of all Barrett's pop tunes, "The Gnome". The lyrics, which are really humorous always make me laugh - whoever heard of a gnome named Grimble Grumble anyway? hehe. More great little melodies come in the stately organ-sound of "Chapter 24", the acoustic sing-a-long ditty "Scarecrow", and finally the incredible closer "Bike", which is an incredible sing-a-long number. The different instrumentation backing to each nursery rhyme in each verse is rather neat (such as the high piano sound of the 'the mouse named Gerald' part ) and the way the track ends noisily with a bunch of clocks, bells, and such, is a good way to end an album where you will find some of the best melodies ever of Floyd's career.

OVERALL RATING: 9

First things first, while The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn is excellent, I don't consider it to be a masterpiece at all. Why? First of all there's the overlong "Interstellar Overdrive," which doesn't do a thing for me, and I don't like "Pow R. Toc H." much either. "Chapter 24" also does nothing for me. Plus there's "Take Up Thy Stethescope And Walk," and awful is the word for this one. I'll admit the opening drum thing is interesting, but the rest sucks. "I'm in bed. Aching head. Gold is lead.Choke on bread. Underfed. Gold is lead. Jesus bled. Pain is red." How stupid does it get?

Not to say that some of the stupidity on this album isn't entertaining. "Bike" is my favorite song on the whole thing (no kidding), and it never fails to crack me up after only about ten seconds. The lyrics are such nonsense, but so damn hilarious at the same time. "Flaming" is also a fun tune after the scary intro, and so is "Matilda Mother," a song so crazy it scares me to think of how high Barrett was when he wrote it. "The Gnome" is another scary yet childish song, and it's also a winner. "Astronomy Domine" is a much darker, but still astonishing psychedelic work, and my second favorite song on the album. The atmosphere is strong. "Lucifer Sam" sounds like reject James Bond music, and "Scarecrow" is good, but a little too short.

It's hard to believe that this is how Pink Floyd started out. The same band who released epic prog like Atom Heart Mother and Meddle and hateful art rock like Animals is here performing kiddie songs about bikes and gnomes. This is mostly due to Syd Barrett being here and leading the band around as his mind was in the stars. Everything on this album screams out acid, fom the music to the lyrics to just the way Barrett sings them. He left the band, and the band drastically changed. You should listen to this right before Dark Side Of The Moon and just sit back and marvel at how much the band transformed their sound over just seven years. Piper itself is a flawed but entertaining listen, and one that is certain to surprise (and frighten) those who only know about DSOTM and The Wall.

OVERALL RATING: 8

Pink Floyd sure started out a long way from where they ended up. Why, this here is a feedback crazy, LSD drenched psychedelic album (don't let anybody fool you... mid-70's Floyd is not psychedelic AT ALL)! Complete with lots of wailing guitar feedback, stereo tricks, bizarre lyrics ("I know a mouse, he hasn't got a house, I don't know why I call him Gerald"), unusual production, and, of course, lots of really, really trippy tunes. All of these things came courtesy of original member Syd Barrett, who was disposed of soon after this album was released (due to his increasingly unstable behavior and drug addiction). The result is an absolutely one-of-a-kind record, the likes of which you'll never hear again.

Most people who have heard of this record know of it for two reasons - "Astronomy Domine" and "Interstellar Overdrive". The former kicks things off with a bang, with lots of crazy sounds, dark atmosphere, creepy vocals, and lots of really trippy, interesting tricks. Very cool. The other, the 10 minute instrumental "Intersteallr Overdrive", starts out AWESOME, with one of the best riffs I've ever heard in my life. It kind of drifts off after that, with lots of improv and melodyless soundscapes, but it all sounds pretty cool to me, and even though they should have cut the track's length in half, I still like it on the whole.

These songs give the false impression that this album is all about space travel and exploration, though. Most of the rest of the album deals with very childlike themes (courtesy of the warped mind of Mr. Barrett). Titles like "Scarecrow", "Bike", and "The Gnome" tell the story pretty well. These songs all have a dark undercurrent to them, though - though they seem sweet and childlike, they somehow sound MENACING. Even at the album's most light, fun moments (like "Bike"), you get the feeling that all hell could break loose at any moment (and probably will). Still, most of these songs still sound great - "Lucifer Sam" is awesome in particular, with it's creepy bassline and insane lyrics ("Lucifer Sam! Siam cat!"). Loads of fun, but you have to keep on your toes. You never know when another "Intersteallar Overdrive" or "Astronomy Domine" might hit you on the head.

I basically like every song here (even the often disliked Roger Waters composition "Take Up Thy Stethescope And Walk", which is stupid as hell, but has some awesome jamming trailing off the end). Still, I can't go higher than 8 with the rating for a couple of reasons. First of all, the songwriting here really isn't excellent - all the songs do sound cool, but that often has to do more with the SOUND than the songs - songs like "Chapter 24" and "Flaming" and the instrumental "Pow R. Toc H." sound like they took about 30 seconds to write. And, if you aren't in the mood, the jamming can grate (like the middle of "Interstellar", for example). Still, this is a worthwhile record, and if you like psychedelic music AT ALL, buy this now.

OVERALL RATING: 8

COMMENTS

[in response to the first review:]

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I mostly agree with your review of the first Pink Floyd album. "Interstellar Overdrive" does fail, despite such potential. A real shame. The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" is a perfect example of something similar which works one hundred percent.

A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS (1968)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Corporal Clegg, See Saw, Remember A Day. LOW POINTS: A Saucerful Of Secrets.

Unfortunately, following the release of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Syd Barrett's totally erratic loss of mind precipitated his exit from the band, and taking his place was guitarist David Gilmour, who would take on the role of lead vocalist and meticulously crafted guitar soloist for much of the band's future material. The spirit of the debut is still alive in many of the tracks here, though, as A Saucerful Of Secrets is mainly composed of outtakes from that album and more recent material, and the space rock sound remains. Syd supposedly even plays guitar on several tracks, and gets one contribution of his own to close the album off with, though the remainder of the album shows Floyd attempting to move forward with contributions from Roger Waters, and a couple overlooked gems from Rick Wright. There's also another really long instrumental in the tradition of "Interstellar Overdrive", but I'll get to that one later.

Saucerful opens up with "Let There Be More Light", which, despite fairly awful production and a frighteningly obvious and plodding verse melody, is quite a fine composition. It has a fine mysterious aura about it, the chorus is fantastically memorable and anthemic, and the opening bassline is impressive. Going quite a bit more for atmosphere is "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", which is very mantra-like, with its' subdued melody, lyrics and quiet Roger Waters vocals that aren't all that noticeable in this setting. It really does have an interesting vibe, though, with neat bell sounds over a trancey bassline, and it works very well as a really good mood piece. Perhaps the major highlight here is actually a novelty number in "Corporal Clegg" whose main features are really attractive and interesting. It boasts a great piercing guitar riff, really amusing lyrics about wartime, and a slightly clumsy but fine arrangement that leads to a great kazoo-led refrain.

Perhaps the most overlooked gems on here, however, come from the pen of Rick Wright. "Remember A Day" has a seriously memorable pop melody in its' piano based arrangement, and it's quite fun to listen to, compensating for the really bad production style here. "See Saw" is even extremely gorgeous and majestic, creating a mood so effective within its' melody and atmosphere that one can almost feel like they're floating. I know I do. The closing "Jugband Blues", meanwhile, is Syd Barrett's leftover contribution, which is a jolly song with an experimental middle which would ordinarily be unassuming if not for the ending acoustic-driven lines of the song ('what exactly is a dream...') that drive home the powerful image of a man who has lost his mind, working as a really fitting epitaph to his brief time with the band.

The only serious misstep comes when the band tries to rewrite "Interstellar Overdrive" in the title track, which I really don't see the 'innovative' appeal of. I hear eight minutes of an unstructured rambling sound collage (which does have interesting musical ideas occasionally, but they don't make for a good coherent song) that would make it a total waste in taking the Syd Barrett 'freak out' vibe a little too far, if not for what comes later. The stunning band harmony part that comes out of the wreckage and creates an amazing haunting atmosphere in the final three or four minutes does nearly make up for the ugliness that came before, but not quite. Too bad they had to make this song a starting point for the even more experimental (but not all that great) stuff that came the following year. A fine effort this particular album is, though, with its' share of captivating moments amidst a bit of slight inconsistency.

OVERALL RATING: 8

Shortly after the release of The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Syd Barrett totally lost it and pretty much had to be terminated from the band very early in the recording sessions for this album. Syd actually stayed long enough to get one credit on the album though in "Jugband Blues", a strange little closer that almost seems tacked on at the last minute. That song does retain some of the child-like charm of the preceding album, as even though a little clumsy-sounding, it has a respectable melody with a jovial chorus, and an 'experimental' instrumental section where a brass band fades in and out neatly.

Besides this one track though, the reigns are handed over to Roger Waters who writes four of the seven tunes. And in Syd's place we get David Gilmour, whose calculated (in the words of all other reviewers on the web) and precise guitar-playing is the total opposite of Syd Barrett's erratic style, thus making the overall sound of this record quite a bit different than the previous one. Besides the aforementioned "Jugband Blues", most of the songs are rather slow-moving and subdued with an average length of four to five minutes long. Very atmospheric too. Roger Waters' "Let There Be More Light" opens up the album with the sound of a mysterious organ and earthly, fast-paced bass-work before drifting effectively into the ploddingly slow verses where he sings the lyrics 'far far far far away away...etc.' The overall production is a little weak, but the majestic quality of the lyrics and heavy atmosphere make this tune a pretty great piece of work.

Richard Wright's "Remember A Day" (the first of his two contributions on here) in turn has a beautiful piano melody and nice lyrics, while "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" (another Waters number) in its' quiet state works as good background music. The latter track is a good mood piece overall, with its' softly pounding drums, creepy organ, and all, but I personally find it a bit dull. Still, not a bad piece. Fortunately, "Corporal Clegg", my favorite tune from the whole album, comes next. This psychedelic tune starts off with an excellent riff set behind some ringing electric guitars, and then goes into the verses where I guess Waters (?) sings in a very neat British voice - 'he won it in the war.. in nineteen forty four' (the stinging organ after each of these lines is great). Then follow the mellower choruses, where a pulsating guitar played by Gilmour adds some flavor, and finally the real 'novelty' part of the song as the kazoo comes in and plays a catchy melody that eventually fades out the tune rather noisily, effectively closing out the first half.

Side two starts off with the eleven minute title track, which like "Interstellar Overdrive" from the album before is a big musical collage, with trippy sound effects and weird jamming. Unlike the former track though, this one goes nowhere and is quite dull. I do like when all the instruments make a sort of swirling effect, but besides that neat-o little thing there is nothing that really pulls you in; the lack of interesting ideas and engaging moods make this only good for background music. After that's all over the sound of clicking drums and a piano start off Rick Wright's pretty "See Saw", which with it's lovely melody and charming choruses that hark back to the last album (in the vocal department I mean), is another good quality track from the man. Even though Saucerful is glittered with periods of dullness (hell, aren't a lot of early Floyd albums though) and is definitely a far cry from the quality of Piper, there are enough great tunes to make this release very well worthwhile.

OVERALL RATING: 7

(John Sieber's review)

What a slew of influences!! Not a single track sounds like the next. As any record can, this one does drag a bit in the early middle, with the annoyingly repetitive "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", which is about 3 minutes too long. But the rest is a hell of a trip. The heavy bass-turns-spacey ballad "Let There Be More Light" kicks off the record, a very good choice for an album opener. "Remember a Day" contains one of the most catchy melodies of all time. I walk around all day whistling it. Ahh, bliss. And then comes "Set the Controls..." and there goes my FUCKING bliss. But it's okay, I've adjusted. Next is "Corporal Clegg" with not one, but TWO catchy tunes, one exposed in the intro, the second in that charming kazoo solo, which I have been caught whistling as well.

Next is the title track, which has many, many good points but a couple bad ones too. It is supposed to be a sound painting of a war, with the percussion-driven "war march" and the organ-accompanied "requiem". The Pinksters actually pull it off rather convincingly (something the early Floyd could do so much better than the late Floyd). But the piece ends prematurely, in my mind. An ending depicting the dead war heroes' souls going to heaven might have been very effective tacked onto the end, but who am I to argue with a classic? Anyway, the record finishes up nicely with the floatey "See-Saw" and the catchy semi-avant-garde "Jugband Blues". I didn't buy this album, by the way. I burned it from a friend's copy, adding some Kansas tunes on the end. Anyone ever heard any early Kansas? There's some pretty good shit for ya. Anyway, good Pink Floyd album, albeit a bit out-there.

OVERALL RATING: 9

MORE (1969)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Cymbaline, Crying Song, Green Is The Colour. LOW POINTS: Quicksilver, Ibiza Bar.

Their third studio effort came about when they were asked to do a soundtrack to the French film of the same name about LSD, so on both counts the project seemed to be a perfect fit for this band. While More certainly has enough of its' share of good moments to be at least recommendable, it's quite an inconsistent effort, particularly since nearly the entire second half of this is pretty much filler quality. These numbers may have worked in the film, but in the context of the album, the effect is rather dull. "Quicksilver" in particular is an excruciatingly boring and pointless 7 minute keyboard noodling track that sounds kinda creepy the first couple minutes it's own, but it's a real pain to listen to in the long run. Stuff like "Main Theme" actually has potential in its' trance-like tendency but doesn't go anywhere special, "More Blues" is what it sounds like - an echoey, but insignificant blues instrumental, and "Dramatic Theme" is very nondescript.

Thankfully, the first half of More is quite good, and does contain a few unknown gems here and there. The folky "Crying Song" has a simple, but beautiful melody to go along with its' atmosphere - it sounds almost majestic, yet very understated. "Green Is The Colour" is even more on the quieter site, with David Gilmour's soft vocals taking on a prominent role. The hard rock of "Nile Song" may be a little pedestrian, but seems to be unfairly put down too often - it has nice distorted riffing, powerful sounding drums, and great effective vocal yells. "Cymbaline" is probably the closest thing you'll find to a classic track here, as it has almost a lounge-ish pace, with a catchy and wonderful chorus, intriguing lyrics and its' drum and piano part going together in perfect unison. To a lesser extent, "Cirrus Minor" is also a well-written song. It's another haunting acoustic number with an unsettling aura about it, although it loses me near the end with its' organ meanderings.

The remainder of the album is mostly composed of brief and pleasant interlude pieces like "Up The Khyber", "Party Sequence" and the funny little Gilmour-composed throwaway "A Spanish Piece". I also haven't mentioned the other hard rock track here "Ibiza Bar", which is done in the same style as "The Nile Song", but in a somewhat less exciting and memorable fashion. At least the first one had some conviction and melody to it. In all, there's really not all that much to say about this effort - it's certainly not one of Pink Floyd's better albums, but there is some good material here. If the rather huge blight "Quicksilver" was just wiped out of existence, I'd give it a slightly higher score.

OVERALL RATING: 6.5

When Pink Floyd was asked to write music for a soundtrack to a hippie film, the band readily agreed. So going down to the recording studio in early 1969, the group came up with six original tunes containing lyrics (all of them written by Roger Waters) and seven instrumental pieces, which were to be used for background music during the scenes. It surely was a perfect idea, as the bands atmospheric brand of music worked well for this type of thing. Unfortunately though, it's the instrumentals which bog down the album, as they are hardly interesting at all. In retrospect, it does make sense for the instrumentals to not be that great, as in the film they are only meant to be used as background music for certain scenes. But anyway, It's the record I'm reviewing, not the film.

It's almost the entire second half of the record which is dull, as that is primarily where the instrumentals lay. Little soundtrack fillers that don't leave any impression like "Party Sequence" and "Main Theme" are there, but it's the excruciatingly boring "Quicksilver" which really sucks, as it is a lengthy and incredibly dull solo organ piece with scattered sound effects. "More Blues" (the title explains it all), "Spanish Piece", and the closer "Dramatic Theme" are also all pretty lame; the only noteworthy instrumental on here may be "Up the Khyber", which is at least somewhat interesting. The other six tunes though, which I haven't even begun to talk about, are good enough to keep this album from simply being a throwaway release.

The best of the lot is probably "Cymbaline", a melodic, slightly haunting tune with a great organ ending, but the highly pleasing and effective "Crying Song" along with the noisy little guitar-fuzzed rocker "The Nile Song" are also really fine. The descending melody of "Cirrus Minor" (an eerie organ is used for great effect) and the lyrical, gentle piano-tune "Green Is The Colour" (I like the vocals for this one, but what's up with them anyway??) round out the first half, while "Nile Song"'s brother, the similar-sounding rocker "Ibiza Bar" is the lone non-instrumental tune on side two. While still an alright tune, "Ibiza Bar" is definitely the weakest of the six Waters tunes, as it sounds like a weak re-write of the former rocker and is also a little bit too indistinguishable sounding. More turns out to be a little speck in the band's huge catalog (the first of their two major soundtrack score albums), but nonetheless, a pleasing third release from the Pink Floyd crew.

OVERALL RATING: 6

UMMAGUMMA (1969)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Careful With That Axe Eugene, Grantchester Meadows, Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave Grooving With A Pict, The Narrow Way. LOW POINTS: Syssyphus, The Grand Vizier's Garden Party, A Saucerful Of Secrets.

Following the More soundtrack, apparently the guys decided to take advantage of the opportunity to showcase their live performances as well as their more experimental, avant-garde side in a double album effort, labeled (but not issued) separately as 'live album' and 'studio album'. It's not entirely successful, though, as the flaws to both approaches here are obvious, and quite a bit of Floyd's attempts at noisemaking come off as unlistenable, half-baked and fairly dated, even if somewhat unique. The live side is commonly regarded as the most celebrated and great piece of work, and apart from one major exception, it's difficult to see why. The great Piper track "Astronomy Domine" still has a surreal mood going for it even without the studio gimmicks, but extended at twice the song's four minute length with monotonous and unremarkable jamming, it's somewhat inferior.

The Saucerful Of Secrets tracks don't sound too impressive in this setting either, as "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" certainly sounds mysterious and gives off the aura of actually witnessing the performance, but the instrumental portion in the middle is similarly overlong, and the lengthy dissonant instrumental bits of that album's title track are simply unbearable, and the only strongpoint of the original song, the ending harmonies, aren't that striking here. Nevertheless, there is one successful performance on this half, and it's actually one of the band's most brilliant compositions ever in "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" - a mostly instrumental piece mood with extremely well placed screaming in the middle, and it is simply genius how the tension is built up from the beginning and calmed down near the end.

The studio half is heavily uneven as well, but that's to be expected, since it includes compositions from all four members of the band, and two of them are mostly wastes of tape as far as I'm concerned. Rick Wright's "Syssyphus" is divided into four parts over 13 minutes, and it's a piano collage that attempts to be frightening in its' mood, but it ends up just coma-inducing and alarmingly amateurish, while Nick Mason's "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party" is a horribly distracting and long three part drum solo piece where he attempts to experiment with mellotrons and various percussion devices, but it's clear he has no real talent for doing so.

The contributions from Roger Waters, however, are actually quite successful and listenable while still maintaining the bizarre nature of the album. Waters starts off with "Grantchester Meadows", a great acoustic ballad with some of his more intriguing and colorful lyrics in the chorus, cool forest noise embellishments and a fly being swatted at the end leading into "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave Grooving With A Pict". Yes, that's the real title - and it is indeed one of the most hilarious and disturbing things I've ever heard, so much so that I can't even explain it, except to say it features bizarre creature noises, backward vocal effects, and someone (Roger?) speaking bizarre and sometimes indecipherable things in a Scottish accent. Definitely a curious (and must hear) track to say the least.

Rounding out the album is Dave Gilmour's three part contribution "The Narrow Way", which is somewhat of an underrated gem, if you ask me. The first part is a little engaging acoustic instrumental section with odd effects going on in the background, while the second features more of the typical avant-garde noises representative of the other tracks and a great doomy riff to keep things interesting. The third and final part is a more song-based section, with a foreboding melody in the verses appropriate for the atmosphere the other two convey, and a conventional chorus in contrast. It's definitely one of the bright spots in a heavily flawed work that it seems to me those who think of it as one of Floyd's best do so just because it's their most bizarre effort, which doesn't always translate to good.

OVERALL RATING: 6

Oh boy... now this is one out-there album. As a double album containing one 'live' disc, and one studio disc (where the boys are each allowed their own wacky and tripped-out sound experiments in the space of two to four tracks), the band stretch out on improvised jams of four earlier tunes, and go deep into avant-garde on the newer studio-based cuts. Although the live part is considered to be superior to the studio part by many, I beg to differ. Instead, I think they are both rather equal in quality, as each contains a fair amount of good cuts, along with, unfortunately, a fair amount of largely disposable cuts. It's supposedly a great album to listen to when you're high (even though I'm not a stoner I can see why), but since you don't grade albums on how they sound when stoned, we can't go by that.

The live side does start out wonderfully though, with an exciting and just as spaced-out version of "Astronomy Domine" as the original one found on the first album (even if the charm of the studio version can never be touched). Also notable is "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", which as much lengthier than the studio version found on Saucer, has better drumwork and a more haunting existence when compared to the original. If only it wasn't so dragged-out, the damn tune would outshine the studio version. Similarly, "Careful With that Axe, Eugene" is a tad long, but doubtless of that, is fantastic on account of the creepy mood created by the bass and drums, and the completely amazing scream found at around the three minute mark. The scream is sure to scare the pants off of anyone in sight.

The only real complete waste of tape on the live side is the unbearably dull "A Saucerful of Secrets", which doesn't improve upon the already boring original (in fact this version is probably even worse). While the live album contains too many periods of boredom, the studio album is just filled with too many iffy pieces. The music is surely out there, but certainly not always substantial or particularly interesting. Richard Wrights four-part "Sysphus" is a prime example of this; the doomy organ scenario it starts off with is interesting, but the middle piano-sections of parts two and three (the odd drum/piano experiment in part three does come off as kinda neat though), and Wright's organ noodling in the first half of part four are unnecessary indulgences that just don't do anything.

Sure, if you are in a mellowed-out mood and want to hear something pleasant in the background you can put this piece on. But during this period of Pink Floyd's career, it seems like the band would release anything that sounded experimental or odd, regardless of how good it actually was. This is especially true for Nick Mason's three part "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party" where quality is forsaken in order to be unique. It starts off with a short flute solo and drum-roll before the main seven and a half minute 'entertainment' part comes on, where a bunch of electronic drum experiments take place. This track is probably the worst of the lot, as the various drum techniques used are just there to show what can be done in the studio given the resources - not an intriguing or worthwhile listening experience at all.

Luckily, Roger Waters and David Gilmour's tracks fare much better. Roger Waters "Grantchester Meadows" is a very decent acoustic track with animal sounds in the background and well-placed lyrics, but his "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave Grooving With A Pict" is truly the pinnacle of the studio album, as the squirrels, chipmunks, and such make some neat rhythm's against Waters vocal "k-k-k-kum-bach.. eeeee!", while in the second half Waters spits out some weird words in a different language. David Gilmour also shines in his three-part "The Narrow Way", where the most intriguing melody of the whole album is found in part three, which is brilliantly dark and doom-laden during the verses. What you get in the end is a double album with mixed results as approximately half of the live album and studio album fail to deliver - this results in a pretty average release which is probably the weakest from the band until after The Wall.

OVERALL RATING: 6

COMMENTS

[email protected]

The mad scottish accent is probably a totally eccentric English performer called Ron Geesin.

ATOM HEART MOTHER (1970)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Summer '68, the 'Mother Fore' and 'Funky Dung' portions of Atom Heart Mother, If. LOW POINTS: the 'Mind Your Throats Please' portion of AHM

Following what is certainly the weirdest Floyd release in the extremely trippy Ummagumma, the band followed up with what might be one of their most experimental and yet normal albums at the same time, also probably the Floyd album that comes closest to fitting the label 'progressive' (not that the playing is anywhere near virtuosic, though). In addition, this is an atypically democratic effort from the band, with three conventional length 'pop' tunes in the middle written by Waters, Rick Wright and David Gilmour respectively. But what takes up the bulk of the record are the bookend group composed tracks, one of which (the "Atom Heart Mother" suite) is among the first side longs in all of art rock.

That aforementioned side long opens things up here as a 23 minute all instrumental suite that's much less rock based than it is classical and avant garde. Conventional listeners might not dig it, and while it's overlong, but one thing it definitely can't be called is uninteresting. The memorable horn melody that makes up 'Father's Shout' assures this, as it starts the piece on a very engaging tempo, with the short organ/violin based section 'Breast Milky' effectively building the drama up some more. It leads into my favorite part of the suite in 'Mother Fore', which is composed of backing music that is quite eerie, and that atmosphere is no doubt helped by the background chanting (OK, so maybe it's technically not instrumental, but there are no lyrics!) that borders on goofy, but in an absolutely hilarious and nonsensical way that actually adds tension to the atmosphere at the same time.

A really mesmerizing organ groove takes the stage on 'Funky Dung', which also has excellent guitar soloing and even more of that downright bizarre chanting that makes everything so captivating. Even though it rambles slightly, the mood it creates is effective and one of a kind, though the 'Mind Your Throats Please' avant-garde nonsense section it leads into I don't really care for, since the backwards noises and sound effects are a bit of a tuneless distraction. Plus, the ending 'Remergence', while reprising the most important musical themes of the suite very well, seems a little unnecessary in the wake of what came before, as it gets a bit repetitive and tail-chasing. Still, "Atom Heart Mother" is quite a fine sidelong in all despite of its' need for a little bit of trimming. Sixteen or seventeen minutes would probably be more of an ideal length for it, in my opinion.

The next three songs afterwards seem a little out of place in the wake of the title cut, even though they're the most exceptional and least flawed here. The moving acoustic folk ballad "If", from Roger Waters, has strong melancholic lyrics that foreshadow his angst on the later albums, and the guitar breaks here are wonderfully appropriate for the mood. The real classic here, though, is Rick Wright's "Summer '68". This tune may seem a little clumsy at first because none of his lyrics rhyme at all, but man is the arrangement and overall mood to it amazing, which makes it easily one of my top 10, maybe even top 5, Floyd tunes.

The lyrics not only capture the miserable feeling of the one night stand effectively, but it's also engaging melodically, and the way it transforms itself from a pleasant little pop song into something soaring with the echoey 'how do you feel' refrain and the dramatic horns between the verses, which instantly remind one of the music in the title suite, is simply stunning. Gilmour's "Fat Old Sun", meanwhile, is another acoustic ballad, and is quite a pretty one, with his vocal tone being the most pleasant to listen to, the refrain melody working well with the rest of the song, and the long guitar solo at the end a huge treat.

In contrast is "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast", which may seem intimidating in its' 13 minute length but is actually not that hard to get used to, as it's really just composed of three short melodic instrumental pieces connected together by hilarious mumbling voices and the sounds of the sink running, eggs scrambling, eating toast and such. The cohesion between the sound effects and the segments could have been much better, and the whole thing could have been cut in half. but the actual themes are great - the first is a neat carnival/organ groove, the second a nice acoustic piece, and the third a really breathtakingly pretty credit-rolling ending to everything. This is an excellent album in all, with its' only noticeable problem being length - I'd say if I trimmed the most unnecessary 10 minutes off its' over 52 minute running time, this would probably be a 9. As it is, though, this is my favorite of the relatively unknown albums in between Piper and Dark Side, and my choice for the most underrated effort in their catalog.

OVERALL RATING: 8.5

(Robert Grazer's review)

After the weirdness of the double set Ummagumma, the band went back into the studio the following year to record Atom Heart Mother, their most progressive album yet. Sporting that notoriously famous cow on the front cover (it probably bewildered many people at the time of its' release), this album contains the first side-length suite of the bands career with the monumental twenty-three minute title track, an all-instrumental six-part epic that is structured just like a classical music piece, and four shorter tunes which vary in length from about four to thirteen minutes. Taking up all of side one (and being one of the first side-length tunes ever in all of Rock music), the epic title track is actually quite a masterful piece of music from the Floydsters; it is also a much more successful side epic to me than the succeeding "Echoes" found on the following Meddle album a year later.

What mainly makes the track such an enjoyable and intriguing listening experience, is the way it manages to hit you in the right spots emotionally as the whole thing unravels slowly and soothingly from one part to the next. Of course there are a few places where the piece can get a tad boring, and certain listeners depending on their taste, may not like the sound collages that come in the 'Mind Your Throats Please' part of this track, but besides these minor flaws this really may be the band's best long-player from the period, and one of the few epics from the band that doesn't come across as at least a little dull to me.

Anyway, the tune is given a grand entrance with the sound of horns fading-in during 'Father's Shout', which as the first of six parts contains the excellent main theme of the whole piece. The beautiful keyboard/violin interplay takes place here (a prime moment which is the main focus point of the track) and nicely flows into the hymn-like 'Breast Milky' (I have a little trouble knowing exactly where each part starts and ends, so please bear with me), a trance-like section where Wright's organ plays along-side some opera singers. 'Mother Fore' then follows with a hypnotizing groove and spectacular guitar solo from Gilmour before going into 'Funky Dung' which brings back the singers while continuing the same groove - probably the two best sections of the whole track. As the main horns come and go again, "Mind Your Throats Please" comes on as the oddest section with various sound effects (Wright's organ is especially twisted) and voices, before finally ending it all with the main theme in 'Remergence'.

After Pink Floyd's side-long suite we have three shorter tunes stuck in the middle. The first of these is a very good Roger Water ballad called "If", which although not a classic by any means, is a well-written tune with a respectable acoustic melody, decent Gilmour soloing, and effective 'spacey noises' in the background. The best of the lot comes next with Wright's perfect pop tune "Summer '68", a song about a one-night stand which is potently melodic as it moves from the cozy-sounding verses to the entertaining 'how do you feel' parts. The horns that appear on this track give the song even more power.

Now with all the good I have said about this album, there is a bit of trouble with the last third of the album. The third and last of the short cuts, the weakly-sung and stupid Gilmour-penned "Fat Old Sun", in direct contrast to the previous track contains almost no melody at all or anything really nice, save the decent soloing at the end. In turn the thirteen minute "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" (which contains the three parts 'rise and shine', 'sunny side up', and 'morning glory') is definitely better, but as far as I'm concerned a needless way to fill up space on an otherwise great album. Even though it contains a few snippets of decent piano melodies and such, it is way too uneventful and pointless of a piece; it's not bad by any means but it is very short of being memorable and a flat way to end this release. But hell, I guess I can't blame them for putting this track on as without it side two would be way too short compared to side one. Unfortunately, it is also the reason I had to dock a whole point off of here - one of the better Floyd releases from this period.

OVERALL RATING: 7

If you’re the kind of person who peeks at the ratings without actually reading the reviews or one who is only reading this because of the rating I gave it let me say that I am dead serious about that rating. This is by far the most underrated album ever to be made, even ahead of Yes’ Drama and King Crimson’s Lizard is my trilogy of extremely underrated albums. This is my second favorite Pink Floyd album, even ahead of Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall. I know, I know. Every Floyd and non-Floyd fan would most certainly argue viciously there, but I don’t care. Except for Animals (which happens to be my all-time favorite album) it is my firm belief that Floyd never topped their first release of the seventies.

The opening suite is, well, as a side-long not “The Gates of Delirium,” and as a Pink Floyd side-long not “Echoes.” Does that mean it isn’t great? Nope. It is one of the most creative pieces of music ever, very varied. I love every single one of the little parts to it very much. The chanting voices are frightening and yet still can maintain the beauty of the song. What other band could do that? The little crazy random noise bit, while certainly not as atmospheric and haunting as the one from the next album, is still quite entertaining to me. The reprise in the ending is powerful, a wonderful ending to this great epic. This was for a good long time my favorite song on the album, and if you’ve heard it you should know why.

The second side is no less spectacular, maybe even more. “If” is a neat little acoustic song with some great lyrics. It has a relaxing feel similar to “A Pillow of Winds” from Meddle. “Summer ’68” has horns and piano in there, and they benefit the song very much. If you’re one to complain about them try to imagine the song without them. It really wouldn’t work nearly as well. Gilmour gets his excellent “Fat Old Sun” in there, which starts out as just another great entry until his solo comes in. Honestly, that solo makes “Fat Old Sun” the best of the smaller songs in here. I’ll agree it can’t match up to the stuff he does on some of the later albums, but it comes close. Definitely a must for a Gilmour fan. To close it all is “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast,” the song I now call the best on the album. Sure it’s really three songs squished together, but what does that matter? Those three are great; the best being the final one, which is an absolutely perfect end to this great album. Of course, most people don’t like this all that much, and that’s okay. I just felt like saying a few words about earth’s most underrated rock album.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

RELICS (1971)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

HIGH POINTS: Arnold Layne, Bike, See Emily Play, Remember A Day. LOW POINTS: Careful With That Axe Eugene, Interstellar Overdrive.

This is the first of numerous Floyd compilations, and the only essential one out there, with the track listing basically being composed of selected material from the band's first three albums and early singles. Even then, though, while a lot of the material here is quite fine, there are several aspects of this album that I'm not happy with, and they center around track listing issues that are probably directly related to the band and record company's moneygrubbing tendencies. First of all, there are a couple of really awesome non-album tracks that didn't make the cut (like one of Syd Barrett's craziest ditties "Apples And Oranges" and another gorgeous Rick Wright pop song "It Would Be So Nice") in favor of inferior already released material, when more of these songs could have easily been put on. There's also the issue of listeners who already own the 9th disc of rarities on the expensive Shine On boxset (as I do) and the appropriate studio albums - if you have all of this stuff, you own all but one of the tracks on this album, and it's one of the weakest single songs here!

Like I said before, there are also weaker album tracks here that in my mind don't deserve inclusion. I never liked "Interstellar Overdrive" outside its' opening and closing portions (throw that freakout crap in the middle out the window!), for one. And although I actually like "The Nile Song" unlike most reviewers, I'll hardly admit that it belongs up there with their best work. And finally, you may be surprised at the listing of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" as a low point here, especially since I praised it so much in my Ummagumma review, but while the live version of that song is one of the greatest examples of building tension I've ever heard, this is the studio version we're presented with, and here, it almost sounds like forgettable, directionless backing music, with the scream coming early in the song almost sounding faint in this context.

With my complaints out of the way, though, I can say the rest of this material is pretty much first rate. Well, okay, with one small exception - that 'missing' track I mentioned earlier in the form of "Biding My Time" turns out to be a decent and even memorable Roger Waters sung jazzy composition with lengthy guitar soloing and an interesting arrangement, but it's not anything to get excited over. The early pre-Piper Barrett singles, however, are - in fact, I wouldn't hesitate to say that "Arnold Layne" could be my absolute favorite song of that era, a brilliant, charming, amazingly catchy, and wild pop tune about a crossdresser (in particular, I love the way he sings 'doors bang, chain gaaaaaaaang...') Great stuff. And "See Emily Play" is really really groovy too, with a very psychedelic vibe in the vocals and atmosphere, featuring trippy piano tinklings, another awesome pop melody, and a very neat guitar solo in there.

As for the other non-album songs, Rick Wright contributes a somewhat fun little jazzy pop tune in "Paintbox", with a great bassline and piano part driving it, plus another exceptional quirky vocal melody (particularly the 'away away away...' bursts), and Roger Waters' acoustic/flute tune "Julia Dream" certainly has a 'dreamy' and relaxing atmosphere, with a somewhat pretty melody there. The remainder of the tracks included here ("Remember A Day", "Cirrus Minor" and "Bike") are all from previous albums, so I'm not going over them again. So in all, regardless of this compilation's glaring flaws, if you are a serious Floyd listener, there are a few songs on here that you need in your collection, and this is the best place to get them. Don't even consider going after that Echoes thing - I'm not kidding you.

OVERALL RATING: 7.5

MEDDLE (1971)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Echoes, One Of These Days. LOW POINTS: Seamus.

After all the weirdness of the previous three efforts, it was here that the band slowly started to move toward a more down to earth and accessible, but still synchronized, atmospheric, and at numerous points extremely creative, art rock sound here. At this point in their history, the phenomenon of Dark Side Of The Moon two years later was definitely on the horizon, as in several points the overall approach and backing music has a very similar tone, though here there doesn't seem to be any one underlying concept. But there certainly is a stunning highlight here in the 23 minute "Echoes", yet another sidelong piece that takes up the entire second half to close out the album and just may be the band's quintessential song, encompassing a great deal of what makes them so legendary, with several breathtaking and unforgettable moments - I'll get to this one later, though.

As for the other five songs, the best of these is undoubtedly the opening "One Of These Days", one of the few triumphs in the department of rocking out for this band. It's the farthest thing from 'cock rock' like "The Nile Song", though, as it mainly serves a purpose of being a really threatening and spacey mood piece that just happens to be built on a driving bassline and echoey guitars. The most interesting portion of it comes in the middle, as the effects of muffled banging sounds and Nick Mason's bloody Vocoder spoken portion ('one of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces') serve as its' scary climax that comes just before it rocks out harder towards the end. And in a very interesting contrast, the following tune "Pillow Of Winds", does a fine job of relaxing the listener as a nice, mellow, relaxing folk-ish number. The atmosphere is gorgeous, and at the same time the chords to the song are quite haunting. Nice singing and fascinating imagery in the lyrics as well.

The next few tracks are the less spectacular portion of the album, even if they're not bad. "Fearless", though a bit overrated, is a decent stripped down acoustic/electric number featuring a good catchy riff playing throughout the entire song as it fades out on crowd noise from a sports arena. Then there's a couple of weird diversions in "San Tropez", which is just a fun and engaging Roger Waters-sung tune done in a Jimmy Buffett parody style (cool groove) and the much less successful "Seamus", which is a rather lame attempt at having a dog sing generic blues that comes off as a stupid, unfocused musical joke. Nevertheless, these two tracks are probably one of the last times Waters' sense of humor was showcased on a Floyd album before his rants dominated the classic period releases, and don't hurt the album too much (especially the later, which clocks in at just 2:13).

It's not side one, though, that makes Meddle excellent (pretty good as it is on its' own), it's the mammoth number on side two. The aforementioned sidelong "Echoes", divided into five unnamed parts, is truly an incredible tour-de-force that showcases the band's mood manipulating skills in a fascinating way. The song begins with the appearance of a single cold piano note leading into the introductory bluesy jam that starts things off. The main melodic theme is definitely brilliant (and strangely representative of the more famous "Breathe" from Dark Side of later), conveying a calm but yet foreboding mood in the lyrics along with that doomy riff and guitar break at the end of the first couple of verses. This part always blows me away, and the organ driven jam section starting off around the 7 minute mark highlighted by really great Dave Gilmour soloing is certainly no slouch either.

After that section of the piece fades out, in its' place fades in a somewhat more atmospheric one. There might not be that much going on in this portion, but what is here (the sounds of wind blowing in the background and Rick Wright's keyboard noises evoking the albatross described in the song's opening lines for a few minutes) really works effectively with the conceptual continuity of the tune. A haunting chord leads the song into a powerful section that builds this part right back up into the main theme in an almost bombastic fashion, with extremely melodic and lyrical guitar parts that lead the rest of the song into a louder and heavier mood. Then after the effective and sudden reprise of the main theme, a beautiful guitar/piano duet for a couple minutes leads the piece to its' end on that one simple, chilling piano note. As far as I'm concerned, "Echoes" elevates this otherwise just good album to a great rating. Meddle is also one of the most critical efforts in the development of the Floyd sound, too, and it's only slightly behind Atom Heart Mother in terms of quality.

OVERALL RATING: 8.5

Getting ever closer to the highly commercial years of Dark Side Of The Moon and beyond, the band begins to sound a little bit less out-there and obscure with this release. Well, at least when compared to the previous two albums. Like Atom Heart Mother there is another side length suite, this time in the form of "Echoes", a thunderous and dark twenty-three minute track which takes up the second side of the album. In most respects though, "Echoes" doesn't hold a candle to the interesting title track epic from the previous album as it lacks the emotional impact and originality that made the former track so good. It's certainly one of the least captivating twenty plus minute tracks I've ran into (and I've run into quite a few by this point) as there is almost no mind-numbing factor to the slow-paced jams or the long stretches of atmosphere here.

The only real worthwhile parts of "Echoes" are the first and last several minutes of it. The haunting piano 'droplets' that move the tune into the main theme or 'song' (a magnificently arcane and dark rock tune with some beautifully subtle and bluesy guitar-work from Gilmour) is actually great, and the most memorable thing on the album. It's when the piece turns into a long, sparse-sounding, and almost dead organ/guitar jam that it loses interest. Who needs the guitar/organ groove on here, when it is done so much more tastefully on the former epic? It gets even more boring when the piece goes into an atmospheric section where the only moment of lasting interest is the 'seal-like' sounds that come from Gilmour's guitar. So what you get is an overall pretty unassuming and boring epic.

Unfortunately, the five songs that make up the first half of the album are nothing to really cry about either, although they do fare a little bit better. Even so, the cool cosmic instrumental "One Of These Days" that opens up the album and the memorable acoustic-dominated "Fearless" are quite good. The former contains fast and spacy organ bursts that fly at you like meteorites, plus some fiercely played guitar-work, and bass that moves the song forward until it becomes high in the mix and creates some weird, spiraling effects. Accordingly, "Fearless" is a strong Waters/Gilmour cut with melodic verses and a strong acoustic riff that repeats over and over again (but doesn't get boring) until fading out the song as the sound of cheers from the crowds get louder.

Stuck in-between these two decent pleasers is the almost tuneless "Pillow Of Winds", a lame, unmelodic song which has an irritating mixture of acoustic and slide guitars (it could have been played a little better). Rounding out the album is "San Tropez" (an enjoyable but throwaway novelty tune - this style of music is done better by many other bands), and the unfunny "Seamus", which as the little piece of drivel it is, is thankfully short. Meddle may be an album marred by the boredom of the side-long "Echoes" and throwaway tracks on side one, but at least Pink Floyd were musically heading down a good path.

OVERALL RATING: 6

(John Sieber's review)

One of my weird druggie friends lent me this CD. She said, listen to it, you'll like it. Boy was she right. This record features corniness, acoustic beauty, and sound painting that Yes could only dream of doing. Based around the concept of water, the album starts with a quiet 30-second "whoooooosh" and a slowly building bass line on the note "B". The boys eventually throw another bass guitar in there and the listener is introduced to the opening cut, "One of These Days", which is the only one that rocks in any sense of the word, but that's okay. It's a nice trippy ride, and very effective at the top of the album. Next is "A Pillow Of Winds", a spacey acoustic ballad with a good slide guitar part. Almost like you can see Gilmour with his guitar on a secluded beach strummin' away. Niiiiiiice.

"Fearless" is next, slightly heavier, with an ascending scale line in the guitars and what sounds like the crowd at a soccer game. "San Tropez", the next cut, has been likened to a Jimmy Buffet song. Forgive me, but I just don't hear that. It ain't bad, though, even if the piano solo is just too damn boring. "Seamus" closes out Side 1. It ain't much (alot of people have called it "12-bar blues sung by a dog") but its cute. Give it a listen.

And NOW its game time, ladies and gentlemen. Time for the side-long "Echoes". Starting with a disctint sonar ping, and slowly building into the verse over a 3-minute buildup (one thing I gotta say: these motherfuckers knew how to build up music!). The verse tune is also very catchy, moving from minor to major key. After a couple verses we get a loooong jazzy guitar solo, which kinda just goes away, and suddenly we're in the middle of a huge abyss. Marine animal noises are all around, and the listener is left floating around for awhile before an organ begins to fade in, letting the listener know where the surface is. The flight for the surface is heard in the buildup into the final verse, through the verse and another guitar solo, and a gradually crescendoing "whooooooooosh" that just washes over everything and never seems like it'll end, sloooooooowly fading out again until nothing can be heard. We're at the surface again, finally coming full-circle, from the opening "whoosh" to the closing "whoosh".

Wow. What can I say? First off, the "water theme" really shows through, especially on "Echoes", but even the shorter cuts sound "beachy". Really nice songwriting ability, these guys. I had a long hiatus from the CD, during which time my brother borrowed it for an ass-long time. The removal of the music from my regular rotation, and subsequent re-listening lately, has given me a unique look at this one. Think of the album this way: "One Of These Days" as a man asleep, experiencing a nightmare, and jolting awake at the end. "Pillow Of Winds" is the guy's morning hours, spent lazily on the porch of his neachfront house, drinking a rum and Coke.

"Fearless" is his tread through town in the early afternoon, past a soccer game, to his drug connection, "fearlessly" purchasing some mind-bending psychedelics. As the sun begins to fall, "San Tropez" depicts his return home for dinner. "Seamus" is his fucking dog whining and rolling in the sand outside while he washes his dishes. And, when it gets dark, the (fill in drug of choice) is taken, and the trip is rather faithfully re-enacted in "Echoes", from the ingestion, building up through the trip till he doesn't know which way is up, then coming back down. Which makes "Echoes" prime drug music.

What makes this album great is its great ability to paint a picture without the use of drugs in an almost pure impressionist sense. While Pink Floyd possessed this ability, it was never done as well as it was on this album. Nobody in rock, not even Yes, could do that as well as this album did. Add that to knowledgable songwriting, and you've got yourself an album, mister! Or missus. Whatever. Finally, I have one more thing to say about this album. As far as turning points go for Pink Floyd, this was it, not Dark Side Of The Moon. This had the silly songs of the Syd Barett era ("Seamus", "San Tropez" to an extent), the acoustic stuff ("Pillow of Winds", "Fearless"), the rocker ("One of These Days"), the trippy sound, and also the side-long effort ("Echoes"). What stone is note unturned? I rest my case. Buy this one ASAP. Trust me on this one.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

OBSCURED BY CLOUDS (1972)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Free Four, Wot's... Uhh The Deal, Burning Bridges. LOW POINTS: Absolutely Curtains.

While the band were recording the somewhat forgotten, out of print album Dark Side Of The Moon (featuring the flop singles "Money" and "Brain Damage"), they were asked yet again to do a soundtrack. Seriously, though, Obscured By Clouds does possess some of the same qualities as its' somewhat more bombastic followup, and it's even, along with the previous Meddle, a solid blueprint for what was to come. Of course, the lack of overall epic feel and the experience being cluttered with pleasant, but insubstantial instrumental tracks, just like More was, ensures that the album is nowhere near the quality of its' classic successor, but the melodies to the actual songs here, however, are actually fairly noteworthy, and there are a few prime cuts. It's just that you also have to deal with crap like the totally weak closer "Absolutely Curtains", which is nothing more than 6 minutes of boring atmosphere and chanting taken from the accompanying film.

The other instrumentals such as the opening title cut and "When You're In" aren't really anything to write home about on account of their easily forgettable tendencies, but at least the vocal songs here are somewhat better. "Burning Bridges" renders its' pointless companion piece "Mudmen" quite unnecessary, as it boasts a somewhat gloomy melody and guitar/organ part that provide a powerfully melancholy experience. "Wot's... Uhh The Deal" is probably this album's most celebrated song, and I find it hard to argue with that assessment, as it's a very very pretty acoustic/piano ballad with the strongest melody here. The Roger Waters contribution "Free Four" is even more interesting, though, as it combines really bleak lyrics (in the tradition of the classic Floyd period) with an extremely uptempo vibe to the melody and backing music (great heavy guitar backing there, too).

The last of the highlights is Rick Wright's contribution "Stay", which often gets criticism on account of the fact that his voice had really declined by this point, which is certainly apparent, especially in the verses, but the melody and lyrics are beautiful enough to make up for it. The remaining two songs penned by David Gilmour that round out the album are also decent - the 'clock rhythm' of the nice ballad "Childhood's End" was even borrowed in a much more epic and breathtaking way for "Time" (though this particular song is still good in its' own right), and "The Gold It's In The..." is a driving, though sort of forgettable, riff rocker. In all, this is an effort that you could say is unfairly overlooked (though in my mind Atom Heart Mother is even more underappreciated), with enough solid songs to make it worth getting, but even though it's more consistent than More in terms of the amount of filler and material that can count as Floyd classics, it's still incomparable with the quality of the masterpiece that would come afterwards.

OVERALL RATING: 7

Pink Floyd's third soundtrack album (the second one was for an unknown film called Zabriskie Point) called Obscured By Clouds is like their first soundtrack release More in certain respects. Both are soundtracks to hippie films, and both contain half a dozen average-length pop/rock tunes mixed in with a set of instrumentals. The main thing that brings Obscured By Clouds to a higher status though is that the instrumentals, which there are less of this time around, are quite a bit better than the dull mood pieces found on More. Often called Dark Side's brother because of the overall scope of the sound and Gilmour's ever-growing confidence in his emotional-grabbing and precise guitar-work, there are four instrumentals and six fairly 'normal' pop/rock tunes on here.

Out of the instrumentals, only the lengthy closer "Absolutely Curtains" sucks. The two similar opening tracks, which include the title track and "When You're In", are at least decent, if kinda insubstantial instrumentals. The title track works quite well as it contains some sustained guitar-notes over a nice synthesized riff, while the latter, the less worthy of the two, is a two minute tune that repeats the same catchy riff over and over again until it fades out. Meanwhile, "Mudmen" - the counterpart to the ballad "Burning Bridges" - is pretty great; starting off as a piano melody with confident-sounding drums it turns into an organ-drenched delight highlighted by Gilmour's far-reaching guitar-work. A nice synthesized mid-section is also included.

Out of the lyrical tunes, the best cut has to be the acoustically melodic "Wot's... Uh The Deal", which besides the laughably dumb title (which actually makes the song even more interesting), is a heartwarming and uplifting tune with a special sentimental quality to it that is only helped by the piano accompaniment. Wright's moody "Stay" (nothing short of a nice melody on this one) and the snappy, heavily synthesized stomper "Free Four" (the little guitar solo kicks in this one) are also minor highlights themselves. The awkward, but effective rocker "The Gold It's In The...", the prelude-of-things-to-come with Gilmour's shining guitar soloing in "Childhood's End", and the afore-mentioned ballad "Burning Bridges" fill out the rest of this fine and underrated (by big-time critics I mean) release. The band was now ready and fit for super-stardom.

OVERALL RATING: 7

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (1973)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Us And Them, Time, Brain Damage, Money, The Great Gig In The Sky. LOW POINTS: None.

I suppose any serious music fan knows at least something about this thing, but in case you don't, this is the album that marked Pink Floyd's true breakthrough into the public conscience and got them huge radio airplay on the strength of several major hits. But don't think because of this accomplishment, this is a singles album or anything like that. Nope, Dark Side Of The Moon is a huge, conceptual piece focusing on the 'dark side' of contemporary life, but more importantly, it is simply a masterpiece of sound, loaded with gimmicks and experiments that enhance it at every corner (ringing alarm clocks, cash registers, huge amounts of backing vocals, doodily doodily doodily noises, etc.). There is not a note or lyric out of place, every song seems to flow immaculately into one another, and overall, it is an experience that simply has to be heard to be believed. Of course, this is part of why some people tend to criticize it in that if you took away all that stuff, you wouldn't be left with much.

This is true in some respects, but the whole point of the album is to create a piece where all the sounds and gimmicks are, in fact, essential to the flow of everything. Just listen and be taken aback by the nothing short of astounding engineering marvel here, without worrying too much about what's beneath, and you'll probably enjoy it more. And besides, I would argue against the point that these songs are rather empty underneath, anyway - several of them ("Us And Them" and "Brain Damage") have quite memorable vocal melodies and could be performed to their bare bones without losing that much of their impact, plus the lyrics, mostly written by Roger Waters, are extremely well-written observations on this theme. Sure, this project may be calculated and overly soundtrackish, and a lot of these ideas they've tried before on previous records, but this is the culmination of Floyd as powerful mood creators and experimentations, and that's what matters most.

There's not really that much point in going over the songs here, as chances are good that if you listen to classic rock radio at all, you've heard well over half the album. From the pounding heartbeat that begins and ends Dark Side, however, I'm really hard pressed to find a single moment here that isn't really inspiring in some way or another, so it's all worth mentioning. Although the whole album flows almost like a whole suite, the first three tracks in particular run together even more impressively than the other two-thirds do. It's just awe-inspiring the way "Breathe" (with its' introductory sound effect laden spoken word intro, and very well-written lyrics on its' slow groove) flows into the doodily doodily soundscape instrumental "On The Run", and then from there goes into the first real tour-de-force epic on the album.

That epic happens to be "Time", whose famous introduction with the ringing alarm clocks and rhythmic intro that flows seamlessly into the verse portions of the song is a simply stunning moment that the lesser song "Childhood's End" it borrows from couldn't have hoped to achieve. The lyrics here again rule, as usual, and the song itself comes to a amazing early climax with one of the most perfect guitar solos ever that ranks supremely high on both my chill and memorability factors. The reprise of "Breathe" at the end of it is a beautiful touch, and that leads to the chilling piece "Great Gig In The Sky", an already quite haunting Rick Wright piano instrumental that's greatly enhanced to incredible effect by really majestic, stormy vocals by guest Claire Torry that really give the song a great, great impact.

Afterwards, The Wizard Of Oz then switches to color for "Money" to begin the album's second side (my thoughts on the synchronization, BTW, is that it's just coincidence, just one that happens to have slightly less occurences of not matching up than most). Some might say this song is out of place on the album, mainly because it's an uptempo track, but the lyrics here are dripping with just as much cynicism and depression as the others. It has a great groove, led by its' bassline and famous 7/4 time signature, and the long guitar solo here, again, rules. Though not as much as my favorite song here by just a little over "Time", "Us And Them". The atmosphere captured by the organ shuffle and saxophone accompaniment gives off the feeling of pure slowdance bliss, the echoing melody is a beautiful and mysterious effect, and the refrain is one of the most catharic moments I've ever heard on any album.

Next is the colorful and rather neat keyboard instrumental "Any Colour You Like", which turns into a really cool interplay between Wright and Gilmour's guitar (nice matchup with the cover art, too). And then, of course, the record ends in shattering fashion with the suite of "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". The first of these features a fabulous guitar part and lyrics that pretty much embody the state of insanity (remember 'the lunatic is on the grass'?), and the last one is the great climactic end, with a real bombast in the atmosphere - anthemic lyrics over a credit rolling melody, and it ends the album on the line 'there is no dark side of the moon, really... as a matter of fact it's all dark'. This may not deserve all the 'groundbreaking' and 'best album ever' acclaim it gets, but in all, Dark Side deserves most of it in my view. Put simply, this is the first in a string of three near perfect classics for the band, an essential for any serious rock collection.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

After six or seven years of recording, the band finally shot to fame on their eighth album Dark Side Of The Moon, which depending upon your point of view is deserving or undeserving of being the most talked about Rock album ever. Either way, one thing I have to agree with about this album is that it's the 'ultimate listening experience'. For the intended purpose of taking the listener for a ride, Roger Waters sure had an original and genius idea when he decided to integrate weird sound effects and such into what are fairly normal Rock songs. Although a much more commercialized album than previous Pink Floyd albums (the band were long due for fame by this point), it certainly is a fresh start after the 1968-72 period, which wasn't always exactly memorable, although some albums such as Atom Heart Mother do stick out.

Even though it is now recognized as one of the most important classic Rock albums, there sure are a lot of well known and generic disputes still going on about it. The most complained about aspect of the album is that without all the sound effects and great lyrics the individual songs themselves aren't that great. That is probably true, but as John McFerrin has said in his review of Dark Side before, that isn't the point of the record at all. Well, I couldn't agree with him more. It's the sound affects and overall atmosphere which make the album so successful - it is simply meant to be a free-flowing and thrilling journey into the twisted mind of Roger Waters. With that said, Dark Side.. does actually leave me cold sometimes, as all the extra elements aren't always quite enough to cover up the weaknesses and real lack of great melodies on here.

Fortunately, they do ALMOST totally cover up everything. It's just that I'm left with a feeling of unsatisfaction on tunes like "Breathe" and "'Us and Them" at times. Still, when I'm in the mood this really is a great album. The way the opening track "Breathe" automatically filters into the awesome instrumental "On The Run", a three-and-a-half minute tune that contains some neat effects from the fast-paced and spiralling synthesizer, is just fantastic. Especially brilliant is "Time", an extended track which starts off with the sound of various alarm clocks going off, before a lone ticking clock pushes the song into a moody synthesized section that lasts' for a couple of minutes. Then at the half-way point the bluesy (and jazz-tinged) rocker forces itself through to bring the album to what I call its' peak. The lyrics and melody are highly memorable(sure, the melody may resemble that of "Breathe", but here its' more developed) and Gilmour's guitar solo reaches unprecedented heights.

Another prime highlight would have to be "Brain Damage" which I and everyone else has heard a million times, yet I never got sick of it. Opening with the memorable lines 'The lunatic is on the grass', the song is a wonderful performance that brings back the singing talents of Clare Torry, whom plays a big part on the instrumental "The Great Gig in The Sky". In-between we have the likes of "'Us And Them" (the first or second weakest track in my eyes - a little too long), "Eclipse", and the blues shuffle of "Money", all of which are heavily played on the radio as well. So that leaves "Any Colour You Like" left - which is just OK. What it comes down to when dealing with the Floydsters eighth studio album is if it leaves you un-satisfied (as it sometimes does for me), you just have to allow yourself to indulge into it to get the whole deal.

OVERALL RATING: 9

(John Sieber's review)

Wow, this is my 20th album I've reviewed. I'll be damned. Fitting that I review this one, huh? Well, everyone and their brother knows about this one, and a great many have said many things good and bad about it. Somaehave called it the greatest rock record ever. Some call it groundbreaking. Well, they're both wrong as tits on a bull. Speaking of which, does anyone know where that expression came from? I'm from Missouri, so I figured it was a redneck thing. Am I wrong? Anyway, it may not be groundbreaking or super-great, but it is good. So lets get to the songs! "Speak To Me/Breathe" starts it off with a hearbeat, a sound collage segueing into a slow, obviously pot-influenced guitar strumming with a slide guitar. As it fades, the synthesizer tapeloop of "On The Run" begins. You know, "doodly-doodly-doodly".... An explosion ends this, and shortly after, the clocks go off and "Time" begins. It might be too goddamn long, but it sure is nice, huh? "The Great Gig In The Sky" closes out the side with the lamenting wail of some chick.

"Money" starts off Side 2, perhaps their most well known song. "Us And Them" is another slow pot-driven number, but it sure is nice, and fun to play on the piano as a solo piece. "Any Colour You Like", the synth-driven jam, follows, segueing straight into "Brain Damage"/"Eclipse", which is perhaps the most sublime section of the album. Then the heartbeat fades in, and out again, bringing us full circle, a la Meddle. Wow, great music! Did I tell you I love this album? Hmm? Then why was I bashing it earlier, you ask? Well, look at it. Is there anything really groundbreaking here? I mean, the sound has been done before by Floyd themselves! Listen to "Breathe", and tell me that they don't strum the same way in "Echoes"! Also, the melody of "Time" seems to borrow from "Echoes" as well.

Well, its a concept album about and life and death, you say? Well, concept albums had been around for at least 3 or 4 years at the time of recording Dark Side. What about the synchronicity with it and Wizard of Oz? Big deal. The floyd said themselves that that is a coincidence. If you want an even better exapmple, get Meddle and program the tracks: 6,1,2,3 (repeat). Play that along with Fantasia. I heard about it on John McFerrin's Record Review Site, and it works, by crackey, and its even eerier than the aforementioned DSOTM/Wizard trick. As a matter of fact, go listen to the Meddle album, then come back to this one and tell me that DSOTM is more original. I double-dog dare you.

But there is one truly remarkable thing about this album that I must bring to your attention. Listen to the CD of it. How many silent breaks exist between songs? Thats right, one, between "Gig" and "Money". Sides 1 and 2 of this record can almost be thought of as two songs, and the tracks as sections of the songs. But thats about it, I guess. You want groundbreaking? Go buy Thick As A Brick or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Now that's originality. This is nice, but not much more.

OVERALL RATING: 7

The Dark Side Of The Moon... God, what can I even say? It's the freaking Dark Side Of The Moon album! The album that is STILL on the Billboard Top 200. The album that was on the charts for some ungodly amount of time. The album that every person in the world seems to worship. Probably the most famous album of all time, and that's including albums by the Beatles. Really, what new can I add to the wealth of things people have already said about this album? Sadly, not much. But I wanna review EVERY ALBUM in my CD collection, so here we go.

The Dark Side Of The Moon, in case you've lived in a cave for about 30 years, was Pink Floyd's commercial breakthrough, the album that finally was accessible enough for the general public to get into. The album is a loose concept album about life and aging, and how everyday problems can lead to madness. Well, the concept isn't really crystal clear throughout, but the album definately gives off an aura of foreboding and creepiness. In a VERY different way from the creepy Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, though. While that one was more drug influenced, this one seems to be influenced by cynicism.

Roger Waters (who basically wrote the entire album) clearly didn't have a very positive outlook on the world when this was recorded, and that really shows on tunes like "Money" and "Time", where he basically just shouts about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket and there's nothing we can do about it. And the music (with the exception of the bizarrely upbeat sounding "Money", which I'll get to later) fits this mood perfectly... little sound effects creep up to emphasize the lyrics and/or the music, and all the tunes are slow, creepy, and majestic. In my opinion, this appears best on the album closing duo of "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse", which depict madness itself becoming apparent. The melodies are big, grandiose, and perfect, and lodge themselves into your brain where they have no chance of ever escaping.

Still, as awesome as most of this album is, I can only give it a 9 for a few reasons. First of all, I don't like "Money". It doesn't fit the general slow, dreary mood of the album AT ALL. And, right in between the creepy soul-singing of "The Great Gig In The Sky" and the ULTRA slow menace of "Us And Them", it just sounds... I don't know... wrong! And, in addition to that, I have to be in the right mood to enjoy "Us And Them", largely because of it's ULTRA slow speed. Still, these complaints are all relatively minor. You should own this album. Well, you probably already do, and this review didn't mean anything to you, but hey, 1 less record for me to review now! Woo!

OVERALL RATING: 9

[email protected] (John McFerrin)

COMMENTS

[in response to the third review:]

Yes, somebody else decided to run the Meddle/Fantasia matchup! I've been trying for more than three years to get other people to run that thing!

Anyhoo, I need to clarify what Sieber said, in case you, the reader, have not visited my site. The time to begin the loop is as the conductor is fading away and the animation begins. Preferably, you will want to set the loop, start it then hit pause, return the track to the very beginning, and then unpause right as the conductor is finishing his fade into the mist.

And ps: DSOTM is a hell of a lot better than a 7. But you all knew that already.

Ps - it goes without saying that you mute the movie while playing the album.

[email protected]

Oooh I liked Dark Side Of the Moon when I was 18. It was so slick and mysterious. You see at the time I was into bands like Queen that had poncey "melody" *shudder* and Iron Maiden who were just brainless Neanderthals. It was high time I listened to some REAL music. The Floyd. Yeah. Totally legendary. And Dark Side is their magnum opus. The pinnacle of intelligent rock. One of the defining moments in the history of popular music. The atmospheric hearbeats, the mellow, spacey guitar runs of Breathe. What a fantastic start. I'm truly listening to the sound of deepest space here. And the repeated electronic loop of On The Run, with it's mysterious spoken passages. What is it? It sounds like a woman speaking over a PA ystem about flights to Rome. I can see the sheer GENIUS of that! And The great Gig In the Sky with it's soulful wailings. Money too, the more mainstream track with Waters in fine vitriolic form about how corrupt the music business is! It's all about making money! Oh no! I'm with Roger in feeling outrage too! And it's so obvious that The "dark side of the moon" is a clever metaphor for madness. And even the cover fits pefectly. A prism. The prism means both madness and the dark side of the moon. It's all so obvious! Pink Floyd really know how to churn out some clever stuff!

That's all great. But that's what I thought when I was 18. Hearing it more dispassionately 16 years later I don't think there's much good music on The Dark Side Of The Moon. The guitar run on Breathe is so mundane. The electronic loop on On The Run? You could do better these days on a music making software program. The singing on Great Gig In the Sky has no form or melody to it. I can just imagine Waters saying to the session singer "Right make it loud and soulful, but none of this *melody* bullsh*t. That's for commercial bands" And Us And Them to me sounds like something you might hear on Sesame Street circa 1971. Us....us...us....and...them....them....them... .None of the members are exceptional at what they do. Waters isn't the best singer, Gilmour isn't the best guitarist, Mason isn't the best drummer... you get the idea. In fact virtually nothing on Dark Side is MUSICALLY very good. For me Time and Brain Damage are stll quite good songs. So a band wrote some good songs, Whoopee. I could list a hundred bands who have written "good" songs. Dark Side Of The Moon ( and Pink Floyd in general) is mainly about EFFECT. The overall effect, the "sound landscape", is what makes it a noteworthy album. Some might find this reason to laud it. I don't particularly. And really, what's the dark side of the moon got to do with madness? The ideas which seem to obvious to impressionable 18 year olds don't really hold any water (no pun intended) to closer inspection. Dark Side To me is a clever album in that it can make you believe you're hearing a masterpiece, but really it's to pop music what Star Wars is to movies. Lots of cool efects to suspend disbelief, but not much else beyond that.

These days I don't take Pink Floyd seriously. I've outgrown Pink Floyd in the same way that I've outgrown watching The A Team. One entertained me at age 13, the other at age 18. In my opinion Pink Floyd appeal to a specific age group roughtly 16-25 or so. Their themes of mystery, madness and whining about how life sucks when you've got a mountain of cash no longer appeal to me now, and there isn't really much good music backing it up. Most Pink Floyd bores me to tears now. Trying to find the substance behind the aural chicanery (or less charitably, "wankery") of their albums is like chasing a rainbow. Some might find this a worhtwhile pursuit. I don't. These days I actually prefer Iron Maiden and Queen to pretentious Pink Floyd. Things have turned full circle indeed. But I don't hate Pink Floyd now either. And really, people like Beethoven, Wiliam Byrd and Bach have written stuff better than any pop/ rock group, and in much greater quantities than the most prolific band. The best pop music is something to entertain you. Some rave about "The greatest musical achievment in recored history" when speaking about Dark Side Of The Moon. I can listen to arty pop music and enjoy it, but I don't take it all that seriously, unlike most Floyd fans. If you're the type who thinks Picasso was a genius then Pink Floyd are for you. Because while Picasso's paintings can draw attention for being odd, at the end of the day his paintings are from a technical point of view absolute crap. I won't go so far in saying the same for Pink Foyd, but really the main appeal lies in the presentation, not the music itself. Similarly people like to eat caviar because it has such high brow and classy connotations. But really it's just fish eggs. Prententiousness is seemingly part of the human condition.

I can cautiously recommend Dark Side Of the Moon to the listener, because it does have some worth, even if nothing more than a museum piece of popular culture. But I don't think that it's because the MUSIC is great. Some- and I mean SOME- Pink Floyd is quite good music IMO, but I need a lot of patience to find it amongst the overgrown sonic weeds of their albums. When people apply genius status to Pink Floyd it just makes me smile.

WISH YOU WERE HERE (1975)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Wish You Were Here, Have A Cigar, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX). LOW POINTS: None.

In several ways, it was probably the best move for the band to make an album like Wish You Were Here. After the mindblowing sonic achievement of Dark Side, apparently Pink Floyd decided to take a much more progressive direction with their arrangements, building much of the material on long jams and soundscapes and a warmer sound than before. It isn't too different from the last album, though, as there are still quite a few sound effects and gimmicks in place, and thanks to the three tracks in the middle of the album, it was a huge radio success. The two concepts here this time seem to be centered around former band leader Syd Barrett (who actually showed up during the sessions) and the stupidity and greed of record companies (i.e. their control over the artists for money).

As for the more 'progressive' reputation of the album, most of it centers on the 25 minutes of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", half of which opens the album, and half of which closes it. Lyrically, this is where the Barrett tribute theme comes through the most, as the words here come through with an emotionally direct and moving force, and they're among Roger Waters' best work in this department, which hit home best on the line 'come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!' The lyrics here, however, tell only a little of the story, as an overwhelming majority of the piece is composed of instrumental jamming. Technically, Floyd were never amazing musicians, but they've got to be doing something right when I rarely feel unfulfilled or bored while listening to this wonderfully relaxing atmospheric piece.

What makes a lot of this stretch great? Well, for starters, Dave Gilmour continues to floor me, as there are plenty of moments here where the sheer majesty of his playing convey the sorrow and beauty of the song just as effectively as the lyrics do. The are are also several great grooves that appear throughout, the shifts in tempo and tone (particularly the sax playing at the end of the first half) and the atmosphere created by Rick Wright's keyboards are done in just the right proportions so they don't appear to wallow in aimlessness. Wright's tone probably does have the most to do with the overall mellowness of the piece, and "Shine On..." does have some of his most striking work - in particular, on the final few parts, the effect is purely gut-wrenching, hopeless and despairing. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't have any serious problems with the piece in general, and I think it's actually some of the most utterly amazing instrumental music ever recorded by anyone. So there.

The hits in the middle, though, are probably the more striking moments on the album, starting with the cold "Welcome To The Machine", which is almost dangerously simplistic in its' acoustic guitar part and obvious vocal melody, but the overall mood of it conveys a bleakness really effectively without being lifeless. The really neat futuristic keyboard breaks works extremely well with the instrumentation and melody together with Roger Waters' pessimistic lyrics that are fed up with the dominant control the record companies have over the musicians (kind of ironic, considering this was the beginning signs of Waters' complete artistic control of Pink Floyd itself). It's also got a really strange ending as well that gives the impression the band was actually performing the song in space, as a door in the spaceship is almost closing behind them at the conclusion of it. A neat effect, I must say.

"Have A Cigar" continues in the 'evil record company' vein lyrically, but this time it's told from the 'executive' point of view and it's sung by guest vocalist Roy Harper (who actually doesn't sound all that different from Waters or Gilmour). Musically, the really spacey keyboard line and organ groove, together with the brilliant ending guitar solo and cynical but amusing lyrics (the line 'oh by the way, which one's Pink?' is hilarious in particular) really make the song a striking masterpiece. Though not nearly as masterful as the title track, which is actually, at its' core, a really simple acoustic ballad, but the way it's executed is a truly emotional tour-de-force that very few bands could pull off. For example, those little acoustic guitar flourishes in the intro (where the electric guitar sounds like it's being played from a shortwave radio) are nuances that really add reflective power to it.

Plus, there's the matter of the lyrics, which, like "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", are inspired by the 'lost soul' Syd Barrett, where sincerity really takes over. You may be overly familiar with them since the song gets tons of play on the radio, but the lines 'how I wish you were here, we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year' are truly genius in the context of the song, which, by the way, is one of my favorite songs of all time, and most likely my favorite Floyd track under 10 minutes (see the next album for my favorites over that length!). As for my overall opinion on the quality of the album, I do admit there are a few (but not many) spots in "Shine On..." that might sound a bit unnecessary and padded, and there isn't as much originality here, but those our only minor complaints that make this slightly less recommended than Dark Side. This is still another damn classic in its' own right. And the real masterpiece was still to come....

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

By this point in their career, the Floydsters (as I like to call them for some reason), had gained much success and were overwhelmingly popular. This success resulted in Roger Waters gaining an ever more apparent dislike for the music industry, as record executives and the like started treating the band like newcomers on the scene when in reality they were already around for nearly a decade. That was just the icing on the cake though, as he also knew how these corrupted guys would and could squeeze every little penny out of you or anyone, by way of making bogus deals and lying. Well, that's one part of the album. The other part is mainly a tribute to former Pink Floyd band-mate Syd Barrett, whom was central to the style of the band in the early days.

As everyone knows, the man himself actually showed up in the studio one day during the recording of this album. This in turn prompted a tearful Roger to write the classic title track, which simply put is one of the single best songs from the band, as it has a beautifully emotional and crispy-clear acoustic guitar melody, heartfelt lyrics, and a few touches of piano and synthesizer for good measure. The whimpering acoustic guitar solo that comes halfway through the song is a wonderful counterpart to the main melody, and the last verse which is vocally and instrumentally emphasized gives the song great power before the tune eventually fades-out.

The rest of the album is no slouch either when it comes to emotional resonance though; The subtle build-up of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One)" contains a couple of mesmerizing guitar solo's from Gilmour that really impact the piece, and the production, which is deeply textured and rich-sounding couldn't be better. Of course not all is great about this track and its' successor "Shine On you Crazy Diamond (Part Two)" (which together with the first one equals twenty-six minutes), which comes at the tail-end of the album. The four and a half minute opening stretch of Part one, with its' sustained synthesizer line and little else is a slow start to this epic and a tad boring, and the latter half of "Shine..)" after the verses have been completed goes on a too long to justify the length of the track.

Even so, while not really saying much musically the first section of (Part 1) does work well in eventually building up to the breathtaking verses where Roger sings the ultimate tribute to Syd Barrett - you know the part where he sings 'Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!'. Great stuff. Then after that line comes a breathy sax solo that turns into a faster jam section where the sax rocks to a jazzy time signature, before fading out and into the next track, the acoustic-based "Welcome To The Machine". Now this track, while clearly having a weak melody, is totally justified by the listening experience it gives you. What really makes this track work is the perfectly executed sound effects; the various machine sounds are a treat and the spacey and weird sounds hurled out by the synthesizer (while a lighter-toned synth is hit every now and then for good effect) is great.

The Roy Harper-sung "Have a Cigar" follows as one of my personal favorite Floyd tunes ever (yes, this little bluesy shuffle really is a superb tune). Fantastically sung vocals such as on the line 'Everybody else is just green', where his voice squeaks on the last word, the vocal melody and timing of the memorable line 'and did we tell you the name of the game boy, we call it riding the Gravy Train', and the exciting jam at the end complete with an eerie synthesizer line that sticks in my head for hours, make this funky bug a show-stopper. More or less Wish You Were Here is on par with Dark Side Of The Moon - fortunately you might be able to enjoy this one more as it is less overplayed than Dark Side.. and its' peaks on here may be higher than the ones on that album. Although the two-part "Shine on..Diamond" contains too many stretches of atmosphere that sounds better as background music than for listening pleasure, the magnificent peak of that track, along with the title track and "Have A Cigar" are enough to shoot the rating up to a low or solid 9.

OVERALL RATING: 9

The follow up to Dark Side didn't sound anything like its predecessor. That album was dark and cold for the most part. The follow up (with a couple of exceptions) is much warmer, friendlier, and more inviting. The Floyd has returned to long soundscapes like on Meddle, best exemplified by "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", which is broken into 2 parts, each part lasting about 12 minutes and bookending the album. Most folks consider these tracks to be the best pieces that Pink Floyd ever wrote. I disagree strongly, though. They're pleasant sounding and all, but they don't go anywhere at all. The sung part is fantastic, but I could deal without all the atmospheric jamming. I can't really call it BAD, because it's obviously not offensive or anything, but they could have trimmed both parts down to about 4 minutes apiece and I'd be happy. 20 minutes could have easily been cut, and that's just not right. Still, if you want to relax and be surrounded by atmospheric keyboards for 25 minutes, you could do MUCH worse.

That's not the end of my complaints about this album. "Shine On" is just kind of pleasantly boring. "Welcome To The Machine", a cold, creepy number about the record industry, just sucks. No melody, no hooks, not even a good atmosphere… just lazy whining over sound effects. Yuck. One of the worst Floyd songs ever, easily. OH how I hate it! Hate it, hate it, hate it! An extra point came off my final rating just to punish this album for including such a horrible number. Brrrr…

The other two songs here, though, rule all over the place, and make up for the album's shortcomings somewhat. First, the bluesy "Have A Cigar", featuring one of the most bizarrely foreboding synthesizer licks of all time, is superb. Unlike "Machine", it really pulls off the creepy atmosphere well, in addition to featuring some awesome guitar solos. And the title track… well damn… what can I say? It's one of my favorite songs ever written. Gorgeous acoustic melody, heartbreaking lyrics… truly a comforting song, and it backs up what I mean when I say that Floyd's best attribute were their acoustic ballads… they ALL rule! Unlike most of this album, which is kinda boring. Ah well.

OVERALL RATING: 6

ANIMALS (1977)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Sheep, Dogs, Pigs (Three Different Ones). LOW POINTS: None.

1977 certainly wasn't a good year for the art rock bands at the time with the punk rock scene beginning to explode and the need to kill away all pompousness rising. While in terms of commercial success, Animals seems to have almost been the forgotten album during this classic Floyd period, but in terms of the actual quality of the music, I can't put into words how astounding this is. Simply put, this effort is in my view a serious candidate for the best art rock album ever made, truly showing the power this band can have in the framework of their conceptually themed masterpieces. And speaking of concepts, this is probably the most intelligent and defintely the angriest concept Roger Waters ever put to record. Loosely based on George Orwell's classic novel Animal Farm, the premise here is that people are divided into three pathetic categories - dogs (those who feed on the helpless), pigs (greedy politicians or others who hold a very high place in society), and sheep (the ignorant common people).

What's also fascinating about this album is that the bitter and hateful emotion is so upfront yet the songs here are as progressive and involved as Floyd probably ever has been. Maybe the songs aren't the most musically complex in the world, but hey, being overly complex is what killed a lot of art rock bands during this time. Instead, it's simply a showcase of atmospherics put to more intense use than normal, and the songs are drawn out to really big lengths to explore these great themes in depth. With the exception of the two short acoustic "Pigs On The Wing" (which serve as bookend tracks to the album) that serve as sincere romantic statements deliberately placed to contrast the nightmarish material in between, everything here passes 10 minutes long, with not a second of these wasted.

Oh yes, and this is also where my reverence for David Gilmour's overall playing style comes to the forefront, as his work on here is probably the best proof that technical flash need not be counted when it comes to mindblowing examples of playing, and everything he plays here only seems to elevate the overall concept of the album to sheer greatness. This is probably most apparent after the first portion of "Pigs On The Wing" has ended and the affecting acoustic guitar melody of the initial 17 minute epic "Dogs" begins (a simple, but wonderfully effective touch). Sure, it seems like a relaxing song at first, but once lyrics like 'you've got to be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed' and 'so when that when they turn your backs on you, you'll get the chance to put the knife in', it's easy to see where the song is going. Sure enough, that's a path to blood and hatred, and the guitar breaks here do an utterly amazing job of conveying the uncertain doom that's about to come.

In addition to that, the imagery that comes into my head while hearing this song is about as violent as its' subject matter. For me, it seems to perfectly convey sunset in some quiet city (with the famous factory and rubber pig in flight on the album cover, of course), with the streetlamps dimly lit and two men meeting their doom. One of them gets stabbed in the back countless times and another faces a drowning death by way of a large boulder chained to his feet. The latter occurence is of course conveyed well by the line 'dragged down by the stone', and it's absolutely eerie the way the word 'stone' gets repeated over and over in an echo over an ominous and hellish keyboard break. Then after a reprise of that great guitar break of earlier comes a bleak finish in a poetic finale with the whole piece ending on that same 'dragged down by the stone' line.

Don't think the darkness lets up at all within the next two songs, though. In fact, "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is even more venomous. It begins with a rather carnivalesque, but extremely haunting and effective, keyboard section to let you know something is surely not right on the farm. For the subject matter, we get each verse having lyrics directed at specific 'pigs' in society, and as for the music, the bass playing is upfront and works very well with the overall groove of the song. More importantly, though, at around the halfway point comes a stunning sort of 'wah wah' section where Gilmour actually makes his guitar literally sound like pigs on a farm as the sky grows darker and darker as the world slowly comes to a miserable, but inevitable, end. You can just sense armageddon in society is coming here...

Especially when "Sheep" begins with another heavily dramatic and brilliantly flowing keyboard intro (where Wright almost gets the same tone as Ray Manzarek on "Riders Of The Storm") that leads into the energetically fast, heavy and rather tension-filled verses. And speaking of these verses, the apocalyptic effect that's being done here is one of the most brilliant ideas I've ever heard, with a vocal echo being placed on the last word of each line and stretched out to the point where the vocals and keys are indistinguishable from one another, and then all of a sudden.... BANG... it's all broken up by a loud and triumphant guitar chord. Then the song slows down for awhile into a really clever section where Nick Mason speaks a really twisted version of the Lord's prayer through a vocoder or something like that. Genius at work.

Following that eerie middle, the fast tension of the song starts back up again in an even more bloody and conviction-filled fashion than before, with great screams thrown in there. Then all of a sudden, the song turns away in simply glorious fashion on an unexpected guitar break, which is actually fairly simple, but produces such a great bombastic effect to end the tune on. Then the album itself also ends perfectly on that pretty little "Pigs On The Wing" tune to convey, amidst all the chaos, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Wow. If you haven't figured it out yet, this is easily my favorite Pink Floyd album ever, and also a fixture in any all-time favorite album list I will ever make. It doesn't make an immediate impact upon first listen, but in terms of thrilling experiences, Animals ultimately comes up an enormous triumph. Go buy this now if you have any passing interest whatsoever in Floyd music.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

The album that most people seem to forget that came out in Pink Floyd's "classic" period, Animals is the most ambitious album Pink Floyd ever put out, standing out as more ambitious than even behemoths like The Wall. What Roger Waters attmepted to do here is create a set of three little allegories, dividing the people of the world into 3 classifications - "Pigs", "Sheep", and "Dogs", which also happen to be the song titles (2 extremely pretty, short acoustic mood setters called "Pigs On The Wing (Parts 1 and 2)" bookend the album). And this is definitely the hardest Floyd album to get into. There are very few strong hooks or melodies to latch onto, and there's nothing remotely warm or nice on this album - the songs are all long, harsh, and viscious. Some people have even called this Floyd's reaction to punk. I disagree (Roger has been angry before, and few punk bands released 17 minute long tracks), but the end result is what is probably the most interesting album in the entire Pink Floyd cannon.

"Dogs" is the aforementioned 17 minute track, with lyrics condemning the "dogs" of society (who use their authority to prey on the weak and the stupid), and the music puts this across very effectively. The music is harsh and textured, with lots of great guitar solos and neat effects like you've come to expect from Pink Floyd (my personal favorite is when Dave sings "Dragged down by the stone!" in the middle, and the word "Stone" keeps repeating forever and ever over a dark, atmospheric backdrop, until it slowly fades away and the song comes pounding back in - THAT'S clever songwriting!) "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is about the rich people who sit back and laugh as the rest of the world suffers. The music is essentially a darker rewrite of "Have A Cigar", and that's what makes it so awesome. The dark organ riff rules, and the guitar riffs that come in every so often are disorienting (in a good way). And finally, "Sheep" is about the little people who end up getting in the way of the dogs and the pigs, and often just get trampled. This one's really clever as well, with vocals deterorating until they sound like guitars, and then a guitar comes in and crunches its way through and... well, it's awesome. Funny, too - Roger wrote some REALLY clever lyrics for this one (I don't wanna spoil it - buy the record!)

This was a one shot deal for Pink Floyd, though - The Wall was angry, but in a completely different sort of way, and after that, the band pretty much splintered and have both leaders (Roger and Dave) ended up make solo records with the Floyd name. So the result is a completely one of a kind record. I penalize it one point because some of the instrumental jamming could have been cut ("Dogs", awesome as it is, could use some trimming) and because, due to its structure, this isn't going to exactly gonna be a fixture in your CD player - it's really just too much for casual listening. Still, this is Pink Floyd's artistic peak, easily, though on musical terms, I still like Dark Side a little more.

OVERALL RATING: 9

THE WALL (1979)

(Nick Karn's review)

HIGH POINTS: Comfortably Numb, In The Flesh (both of them), Don't Leave Me Now, Nobody Home, Run Like Hell. LOW POINTS: Mother.

After the entirely uncommercial Animals tour-de-force, Pink Floyd returned to the public eye in a huge way with another massive commercial success that has gone down in history as quite a holy grail album in rock history. By this time, in terms of songwriting, the band was now pretty much entirely dominated by Roger Waters, and this is where he took that dictatorship to the extreme in creating perhaps the most notorious and overblown conceptual 'rock opera' of all time. Of course, it became rather notorious for its' 'we don't need no education' chant in the hit "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)", but of course, it's really not that simplistic. This is basically a confused philosophical story about a rock star named Pink Floyd and the building of his 'emotional wall' over the two discs that take full advantage of the band's studio experiments and their knack for always emotionally hitting the listener in precisely the right spot.

Like Dark Side Of The Moon, the 'overrated' cries from critics and even fans concerning The Wall are well audible into the night - and to these cries I agree to an extent. The main problems one may have with this album is that conceptually, it's just not that original or breathtaking as what they managed to come up with before, and that a lot of it is based on shorter 'interlude' pieces that may be a bit unnecessary in places as thir only function is usually to build up to the lengthier, more telling pieces (which makes this a little short on highlights). On the other hand, though, the Floyd gimmicks are still in full force, and that's surely the best part of their sound, so as a result, there are quite a few very stunning moments that come out of the concept here that I will get to later.

While many see the first disc of this effort the absolute be all and end all psychological experience, this is actually the half of the album that I have the most problems with. Maybe it's because I've heard the second part on the radio way too many times, but the famous "Another Brick In The Wall" suite doesn't quite do it for me as much as it should. The first part is definitely a haunting introduction, but like its' much more well known sequel, it's musically and melodically too simplistic for my liking, based on hooks that may be a blast to sing along to, but I just think they're way too repetitive to make a serious impact. And the acoustic ballad "Mother" is perhaps the only bad song the band ever wrote in their classic period, with a really bland and melodyless tone to the whole thing, plus its' simple guitar part was already put to much better use on "Pigs On The Wing" from the last album.

OK, now that I've gotten my complaints out of the way, I can still say the remainder of this album is, for the most part, amazing. The shorter tender ballads "Goodbye Blue Sky" and "The Thin Ice" may be lacking a little something as far as significance goes, but they do have an extremely beautiful vibe to them in parts. There's also the way the chilling "Empty Spaces" (which contains really dramatic atmosphere, vocals and a backwards message to Syd Barrett) segues into the energetic 'cock rock' of "Young Lust", which really does fit Pink's mental state, and is perhaps the best attempt Roger Waters ever had at writing such a song.

The best moments on this disc, however, are led off with the mindblowing opener "In The Flesh?", which is one of the most bombastic pieces of music I've ever heard. Great anthemic guitar part, incredible booming energy and really appropriate introductory melody that begins the album on such a breathtaking note. The suite of songs towards the end of the disc where Pink's wife leaves him for good are also very striking - "One Of My Turns" is an extraordinarily effective way of conveying Pink just throwing a fit out of nowhere and breaking shit all over the house, "Don't Leave Me Now" is a really heartwrenching song that works on the plea of that particular song title (this one has to be heard to be believed), and it closes out on the shorter interludes, the explosive "Another Brick... Part III" and the softer introspective "Goodbye Cruel World" to let you know things will never be the same.

Now as far as disc two goes, this is actually the half which many people seem to have a significantly bigger problem with - they point out Waters overdoes it way too much with the 'sicker' aspects of the plot after the wall has been built, and that the numerous shorter tracks are even more waste of space than before. I don't know if I'm actually hearing different songs than these people, but to me there's absolutely nothing on here that doesn't do a great job of heightening the drama of what's to come. It couldn't get off to a better start than "Hey You", which seems so paranoid and cold in its' mood with its' haunting melody and guitar line or the mostly instrumental and achingly beautiful "Is There Anybody Out There?"

"Nobody Home" is certainly another gem here, where Pink reflects on his current situation while flipping through 'thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from' over a wonderfully majestic and bleak orchestral arrangement and melody. And then two more interlude pieces in the haunting "Vera" and maybe overly Broadwayish "Bring The Boys Back Home" serve as the final setups for what seems to be the ultimate centerpiece here - the atmospheric ballad to end all atmospheric ballads, "Comfortably Numb". A simply stunning Waters and Gilmour duet, with very chilling overtones to the vocals and orchestral atmosphere, it just freaking rules, especially the brilliant life-affirming guitar solo in the middle. Say it's overrated all you want, but it always gets me every time. Yikes.

Then we come down the home stretch with the inspirational harmonizing of "The Show Must Go On" marking the very point during the album where 'the wall' has finally been built. Once the climax has now happened, Pink is now on the brink of absolute insanity on the "In The Flesh" reprise (without the question mark in the title this time), which carries the same bombastic power as the opener, this time with a lot more venom and intent in Pink's words - it seems like he wants to start a revolution, and not a very pretty one... the lyrics are tremendously hateful, racist, and profound here. It's really neat the way it moves into the echoey adrenaline rush of a rocker "Run Like Hell", which seems to capture the very experience of a live show in song (it's in fact one of the post-Waters live favorites, and a major Gilmour contribution).

"Waiting For The Worms", meanwhile, seems to be the last straw for Pink, as he's now been established as a major threat to society - what's striking about this track is its' beautiful piano work and melody, yet it features the same sort of intent from Pink in the lyrics. The really doomy and dramatic ending really gets me going as well, and along with the very brief "Stop", it sets up the most overblown and absolutely hilarious song on the album, "The Trial". This one is backed by heavy Broadway-ish orchestration and theatrical contributions from the 'judge', the 'schoolmaster' and the 'jury', all of which proclaim him, 'crazy... toys in the attic, he is crazy' - it's quite a trip to hear.

And then the wall comes down with a furious crash.... and we get one final (seemingly anticlimactic) brief thing called "Outside The Wall". Now that's a mighty confusing but exhilirating finish to this album, which I can't exactly call one of the absolute best of their output like many do - it's simply a very excellent conceptual outing that's well worth hearing for its' many, many exciting moments. Too bad it was also the last album that Pink Floyd as a band ever made...

OVERALL RATING: 9

Ah, The Wall. The third best selling album of all time (behind The Eagles' Greatest Hits - Volume One and Thriller), one of the most famous concepts of all time, some of the most famous songs of all time… there's really not a WHOLE lot I can offer about this album that hasn't been said by countless others. Like DSOTM, it's well trodden territory. That's not gonna stop me, though!

Well, in case you've lived in a hole for 20 years or so, this album is about a guy named Pink Floyd (creative, eh?) who gets in trouble at school, has troubles at home with his mother, has an unfaithful wife that he beats, and generally just has a lot of problems. I guess we're supposed to like him a little, though I certainly don't - he's a jerk. Well, he eventually builds a metaphorical "Wall" around himself, so as to keep the outside world away from him. Then the plot just gets weird… there are Nazi references, he starts a cult, he goes on trial, blah blah blah… the plot is really quite nonsensical if you think about it (and more than a little pretentious). But really, the plot isn't what matters most here. What matters most is, of course, the music. And, much like the plot, it just doesn't quite gel on more than one occasion.

Things get off to a grand start with "In The Flesh?", which has a majestic, wonderful, upbeat riff, which is probably somewhere in my top ten favorite riffs ever. Roger's vocals (that's one thing I forgot to mention… Roger sings most of this instead of Dave, and Roger's vocals, well, can be a bit screechy and annoying) actually fit in pretty well, and the song closes on a spectacular crescendo, which (amazingly) makes it my favorite song on the record, perhaps in all of Pink Floyd-dom. Awesome awesome awesome! And hey, there are a bunch of fantastic songs strewn throughout these two discs. "Mother" is a wonderful, sad ballad, with a great guitar solo. Ditto "Comfortably Numb", another candidate for my favorite Pink Floyd song. Or hey, how about the EXTREMELY creepy mood setter "Empty Spaces", complete with backwards talking and creepy synths? Awesome, man! That's what the record should be!

Unfortunately, though, a lot of this album gets weighed down with pretentiousness. Nothing against pretentiousness on the whole, but some of these tunes really have no reason to exist. Like basically all of the first half of the second disc (except for "Hey You", which is good). Short little plot advancing songs that really do nothing at all for me. Blah. Hey, I'm not even a huge fan of a bunch of the hits here. I never liked "Run Like Hell" at all, and "Young Lust" never did anything for me either. Plus, the album just seems to get weighed down after a while… some deep cuts would have done this album some good (and in modern times, made it fit on one disc). Still, though, the highlights make this one worth checking out. Why am I telling you this, though? You've already made up your mind on this one and either own it or don't. Still, though, if you haven't already heard it, be prepared for some really awesome stuff. Just be prepared for filler aplenty as well.

OVERALL RATING: 7

(Kevin Baker's review)

It probably says something about the fame of this album and the nature of my class that Another Brick In The Wall, pt. 2 is one of our unofficial class songs. The fact that a bunch of 16 year olds, most of whom have no interest in "old" music, can say have heard the song and like it is a testament to just how big The Wall and Pink Floyd were and are. It also reveals what most people in my class think about authority figures, but that's a whole 'nother story. At any rate, if you've never heard of The Wall, you've been under a rock or in a very isolated fallout shelter for the past 20 years. If you've never heard anything from it, you obviously disdain classic rock radio, because it gets lots of airplay as well.

It's also one of the most shatteringly great listens I've had for some time. It's essentially a rock opera following a rock star named, of all things, Pink Floyd. Imagine that. At any rate, Pink is abandoned by his dad (or else his dad gets killed...either way, he has no real father figure), smothered (figuratively speaking) by his overprotective mother, and left by his wife. He then starts to go bonkers and shuts out the worlds effectively. He also seems to get involved with drugs, and by the end of the story, he's some sort of menace to society and a total fruitcake. The first song, In The Flesh?, seems to be an introduction to all of this with Pink telling us about his cold eyes and such. The story proper starts with the ballad The Thin Ice, which seems to be a cautionary tale. However, it's not all that outstanding musically.

However, I must disagree with Nick and say that I love the Another Brick In The Wall series of songs here on the 1st disc. I say that the first one, talking about how "daddy's flown across the ocean" coupled with the helicopter noises at the start of The Happiest Days Of Our Lives really captures a feeling of watching daddy fly off. The afore mentioned Happiest Days song introduces us to another life-shaping person in Pink's life, a horribly abusive teacher who ruins his childhood and also builds in him a major rebellious attitude towards the education system, as indicated in Another Brick In The Wall, pt.2. Being still in school, I can say this song is an anthem of teen angst and hate for school and authority. Despite that, I still like the song.

Then, we go off into an acoustic ballad introducing us to the overbearing mother. It works on a plot-line level, but it's really too long for how bland it is. I much prefer Goodbye Blue Sky, which captures much better the Cold War paranoia (and emotional instability of Pink) of the era than "mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?" ever could. It's also very peaceful....kind of. It's also eerie. Great song. Also great is Empty Spaces. You would not believe how ominous this song is...heck, I'm in a brightly lit room and it's making me paranoid right now.

However, do they follow it with another creepfest and scare the heck out of us? Nope, they chase it with a song about how randy ole Pink's gotten in his older youth called Young Lust. Pink needs a dirty woman apparently...how kinky! It does have a pretty good riff, though. Importantly, we learn through the phone calls at the end that Pink's dirty woman obviously isn't his wife. The lovely couple then seem to begin a split in the next song (albeit a well-produced and excellently performed split), and that is finalized in Don't Leave Me Now as Pink begs his wife to stay, and she doesn't. It's a very moving plea, or at least to my ears it is. That was apprently the last straw for Pink, cause he finally cuts himself off from it all. The wall is up. There ends the first half of this saga.

The second half begins with Hey You, which tells of the beginning of Pink's slip into insanity as the "worms entered his brain." It sets a melancholy tone for the rest of the album, and suitably so. It works well, and is a highlight here. Meanwhile, the triple-punch of Is There Anybody Out There, Nobody Home, and Vera is a mighty punch indeed. The three songs work excellently together to create a very sad, depressed, melancholy mood. I do have to be honest with you, though. With the exceptions of Comfortably Numb (my favorite song by Pink Floyd) and Run Like Hell, the rest of the album slides away faster than Pink's sanity after his wife leads him. It's just to much for me, in all honesty. It gets old and boring....sorry. I just can't take it anymore!!!!!!!!!

OVERALL RATING: 9

THE FINAL CUT (1983)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

HIGH POINTS: Paranoid Eyes, The Fletcher Memorial Home, Your Possible Pasts. LOW POINTS: Not Now John.

...since as much as much as The Wall may have been considered a Roger Waters solo album, this effort can really be called a Pink Floyd album only in name. Not only does he write all the lyrics and politically oriented concept of war and its' consequences, but apart from one song he also sings all the tracks. As for his bandmates, virtually Dave Gilmour's only impact here is the obligatory guitar solos throughout plus lead vocals on "Not Now John" (which is a rather poor rehashing of Floyd 'cock rock' numbers like "Young Lust" and "Nile Song", and it sounds very out of place on the album), Rick Wright isn't even present, being replaced by studio musicians and Nick Mason hardly even plays much on the record at all. It also doesn't help that musically and especially 'melodically', many of the tracks are almost direct rehashes of Wall material, particularly the stuff on the second disc, and there isn't even that much in the way of memorability in that area to begin with. In a sense, this sounds like it would be a complete disaster.

Well, actually it isn't particularly. There is an important aspect of The Final Cut that really makes it a successful album, and that is the lyrics. Waters seems to have no trouble of making the concept come alive through them, especially since he himself actually lost his father during wartime as a child, and that only helps matters. "The Post War Dream", "Paranoid Eyes" and "The Fletcher Memorial Home" convey these questioning, hurtful feelings in an incredible fashion. The actual music doesn't always live up to the power of the lyrical content, but those three work well enough, the first as a quiet to bombastic introduction piece, the second as a calm acoustic/piano ballad, and the last featuring a chilling spoken section over orchestral backing. "Your Possible Pasts" is one of the few times Roger puts a capable melody to his lyrics, with a fine memorable chorus and arrangement, and "Two Suns In The Sunset" is so powerfully reflective to close out the album (the lyrics are particularly chilling here).

The other tracks would be more of a success if they weren't either such blatant ripoffs of the last album (the title song, for example, is a powerful account of a man who tries to commit suicide but can't bring himself to do it, and it's also extremely reminiscent of "Comfortably Numb") or unmemorable concept-oriented numbers that rely mostly on the continuity of the previous songs and the lyrics to make any sort of impact (the stupid "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert", "Southampton Dock", "The Hero's Return"). Still, due to its' virtues this is still a fine album, and its' flaws aren't as detracting played straight through, since the storyline and flow has quite a gripping feel to it. Too bad the recyclative tendencies (and poor melody writing) had to get in the way.

OVERALL RATING: 7.5

A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON (1987)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

HIGH POINTS: Learning To Fly, One Slip, On The Turning Away. LOW POINTS: The Dogs Of War, Yet Another Movie/Round And Round, Signs Of Life, A New Machine (both of them).

Following The Final Cut, Roger Waters disbanded Pink Floyd for a solo career (sort of strange, since that album and The Wall are practically Waters solo albums themselves), but Dave Gilmour apparently wasn't quite open to that option, instead attempting to reform the group along with Rick Wright and Nick Mason. Needless to say, this didn't sit well with Waters, enough that a court battle over the rights to the Floyd name followed, which Gilmour won. In the long run, though, all this accomplished was Gilmour's excuse to release the effort as a glorified solo album, using the Floyd name and elements of their style incorporated so more fans would buy into it. But alas, most fans hate the end result of this album, and to a degree, I'm very much one of them, even if it seems to me it's an otherwise good (or at least decent) offering marred by a few atrocious numbers and a 'Floyd cover band' atmosphere.

And I do say 'cover band' for a reason. Wright and Mason hardly play on this album (and Waters certainly doesn't), with mostly session musicians and outside songwriters helping Gilmour out. As for the good, the well known single "Learning To Fly" is certainly a memorable, majestic pop tune, with a haunting middle bridge, and "One Slip" (despite its' clock-rhythm in the intro being ripped off from "Time") has a fine darkness and an infectious keyboard line to it. The arena-rock ballad "On The Turning Away", though certainly resembling "Wish You Were Here" more than a little, is very moving, with a fine long guitar solo at the end. The closing "Sorrow" resembles its' title well as a fine eerie depression worn song (even if somewhat low on memorability) and the jazzy instrumental "Terminal Frost" may be overlong and dangerously close to elevator music, but the gorgeous piano line throughout produces a wonderful effect.

The remaining four tunes, however, are almost completely awful, and what really bring the album down to a substandard (and atrocious by Floyd standards) rating. "Signs Of Life" is a completely tuneless opening instrumental, ripping off the start of Dark Side Of The Moon and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "The Dogs Of War" has horrible lyrics to go with an incessant synth, overdramatic organ and atonal sax solo in the middle, and "Yet Another Movie/Round And Round" is almost totally pulseless in its' slow tempo and metallics outside its' ending (and it's over 7 minutes long), with its' line 'the babbling that I brook' quite possibly being the stupidest lyric ever written by someone who was actually in his right mind.

Well maybe Gilmour wasn't in his right mind, judging by the horrid (though thankfully short) "A New Machine", which is divided into two parts and separated by "Terminal Frost". Sung with his voice altered through a machine, with each line starting and stopping constantly, it's a pretty abominable experience, as are those other three songs I mentioned to a lesser degree. All in all, though, this isn't an album to be completely avoided, as there are a few worthy and recommendable, though derivative, highlights scattered about, but the worst material here proves that you'd be hard pressed to find a a decent amount of "Signs Of Life". Beware "The Dogs Of War", and make sure to not make this album one of your first Floyd purchases.

OVERALL RATING: 5.5

THE DIVISION BELL (1994)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

HIGH POINTS: Poles Apart, A Great Day For Freedom, Take It Back. LOW POINTS: Cluster One, Keep Talking.

The second post-Waters Floyd effort has gotten a lot of acclaim in recent years, ranked by many music fans among the greatest albums of all time in several 'top 100/1000 albums' polls I've seen, and Floyd fans themselves recommend it quite highly to those not all that acquainted with the band. This is perfectly understandable, as Dave Gilmour decided to journey even further into imitating the classic sound than the last album and heavily incorporating 'elements' from the 73-79 albums (particularly Wish You Were Here), with Rick Wright and Nick Mason playing even more than before. While I certainly can't deny it's a huge improvement over the last album in quality, it's still quite overrated by fans, as its' in reality little more than a classic period cash-in. But at least it's a good one, and contains no atrocious low points like "The Dogs Of War" or "A New Machine".

What The Division Bell also has going for it is an intriguing concept, which seems to revolve around lack of communication, in particular concerning an open letter to Roger Waters, with a lot of references such as 'today the wall came down', 'the steel in your eyes', and 'should I sing until I can't sing anymore' making it rather obvious who the intended target is, not to mention the various uses of "I" and "me", with the former gaining the dominance throughout the lyrics. This aspect, along with a wonderful 'you can drift, you can dream...' ending section, certainly saves "What Do You Want From Me" from the wastebin, since musically it's a rather cheap ripoff of "Have A Cigar". It also elevates the best of the album, "Poles Apart", to being a classic Floyd anthem in its' own right. It's got appropriate fast acoustic part running throughout the song, gorgeous melody, and lamentful lyrics dealing with what Waters had become in the later years of the band. Personally, I could do without the sound collage bit in the middle, but otherwise, it's an absolutely fantastic tune.

There are also numerous other highlights elsewhere throughout this 66 minute opus. "A Great Day For Freedom" and "Wearing The Inside Out" are totally beautiful ballad-style songs, the former with a great yearning chorus melody and the latter featuring Rick Wright's first songwriting credit since Wish You Were Here - the lyrics to this song are a perfect description of his somewhat alienated ordeal under Waters' control in the mid to late 70's, which make this nice jazzy song even more effective. The instrumental "Marooned", despite being somewhat similar to "Us And Them", also has a great flow and atmosphere to it, "Coming Back To Life" shifts effectively between quiet atmosphere and a good rhythm within the rest of the song, and "Take It Back" is an awesome example of Gilmour's signature echoing guitar style and pop song elements being merged together perfectly (though that guitar style done constantly throughout the album does get a little annoying after awhile).

The other four tunes aren't as spectacular (though still not too bad), which, along with the obvious derivative factor, is why I can't really give this more than a 7, as much as I want to. "Cluster One" reverts back to the tuneless instrumental style that opened the last album, ripping off "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (again), "Keep Talking" is somewhat gimmicky with the backing singers, Stephen Hawking prose, and "Sorrow" ripoff nature, "Lost For Words" doesn't really make much of an impression, and the closing "High Hopes" meanders ultimately to no reasonable conclusion over an 8 minute length. Still, despite these weaknesses, this is still a worthy album for late period Dave Floyd, even though one should consider the past glories before praising it too heavily, not to mention its' merits (like the thought behind the concept) before bashing it.

OVERALL RATING: 7

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The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking

MUSIC FROM "THE BODY" (1970)

released by Roger Waters & Ron Geesin

(reviewed by Joseph Spaulding)

After Pink Floyd released Atom Heart Mother, with the title track being co-written with Ron Geesin, Roger and Ron got together to work on a soundtrack to the film The Body. Most of the album is made up of Ron Geesin instrumentals with the occasional folk song courtesy of Mr. Roger. Ron's instrumentals go far beyond bizarre and listening to them provides an unusual experience. The main problem is a violin that is constantly used can be harsh to listen to, but other than that the songs are fairly listenable and some are downright hilarious. For example, take the opening track 'Our Song' which is made up of mostly sound effects like a baby laughing, burping and flatulence, and damn it, flatulence is funny. Another funny track is 'Body Transport' where Roger revives his beloved Ranting Scotsman to a good effect. The song 'Hand Dance-Full Evening Dress' sounds like it belongs in an Atari game - listening to this I can almost see Mario running after Donkey Kong, but that's beside the point.

Roger's two folkish songs 'Sea Shell And Stone' and 'Breathe' (no not that 'Breathe' but it is similar to the one found on DSOTM) are pleasant but have the exact same melody. Then there is 'Give Birth To A Smile' which closes the album and features Mr. Waters backing band at the time Pink Floyd. Needless to say it is the strongest track here and the only one that you will probably remember after the first playing. The album is very similar to the style on Ummagumma, so if you liked that one grab this one fast - this is almost the sequel to it. I actually like this a little better because it sounds a little stronger than Ummagumma, I guess because Ron Geesin is a better songwriter than Nick Mason and Rick Wright. Still the album has some flaws, most of the songs have a similar sound to them and are not very distinct and some of the songs can be quite irritating but it does have some enjoyable moments that are worth while so if you see it cheap don't hesitate to pick it up before it goes out of print.

OVERALL RATING: 6

THE PROS AND CONS OF HITCH HIKING (1984)

released by Roger Waters

(reviewed by Joseph Spaulding)

A concept album that can best be described as a Roger Waters wet dream. The plan for this album happened back in '78 when Roger presented Pink Floyd with two demos for their next potential album. Thankfully the band chose The Wall instead of this horror. Not that this album is awful but the only thing that truly saves it from total destruction is some nice guitar work from Eric Clapton and I don't think that David Gilmour could salvage it. The album overall has a similar feel to that of The Final Cut in the sense that some of the "melodies" from the two albums are very similar to each other. In fact 'Go Fishing' sounds just like 'Your Possible Pasts'. Further more the album is weakened by the fact that most of the songs are monotonous and aside from Eric's solos it is not very exciting.

The concept goes as follows: Apparently Roger and his wife pick up some hitch hikers and Roger runs off with one of them and after being attacked by Arabs they move to the country and have some kids then she leaves him and he starts hitch hiking. He then misses his wife and wakes up to find it was just a dream, or I guess I am not really sure. About four good songs come out of this album - the best is 'Sexual Revolution', and the title track is pretty strong too - I especially like the Yoko Ono line. I never really cared for 'Every Strangers Eyes' until I saw Roger in concert this summer and now I think it is actually pretty cool. The other good song is 'Running Shoes' which is a nice rocker. Also I like the female singing on 'Remains Of Our Love', but other than that the album is too monotonous to really be great.

OVERALL RATING: 6