ATOM HEART MOTHER

Atom Heart Mother is very usually disliked by the band members themselves, which tells something about their huge urge to perfectionism, which can be seen on their later records. The soundworld isn't so carefully handcrafted and repaired like Dark Side Of The Moon or Wish You Were Here, but that doesn't matter at all. We are talking about one of the absolute highlights of Pink Floyd's career.

The epic title track is absolutely magnificent. Dividen into six parts: Father's shout/Breast milky/Mother fore/Funky dung/Mind your throats please /Remergence. It begins with a cool 'western'(as noted by Waters) theme by Wright and Gilmour, and Water's bass follows on the background very smoothly, also some nice horns by the visitor Ron Geesin. The 'western' theme then repeats during the song and carries it on. Nick Mason does his task as always, but doesn't get his change to show his talents so visibly as his comrades on the whole album. Nick Mason has always been more average than a superb drummer, but i think his finest moment is on Live At Pompeii, very stylish percussion work indeed. But back to the song, which goes on very gently, featuring acoustic stuff and very beautifull keyboard work from Rick Wright. There's also a lot of bizarre buzzing and various sounds which also give the song a part of it's thick athmosphere. Gilmour delivers some nice leads and his jams with Mason are also pretty cool. Towards the end we hear all kind of voices of people talking something that cannot be explained. One more time the main theme and all i can say is that AHM truly belongs to my top-5 of Floyd songs.

If, is a simple gentle self-studying acoustic part by Waters, which serves it's place on the album and fits on it's close-to the land terrain some kind of i don't know. You'l feel it. Pretty good, but still the weakest point on the album, Fat Old Sun, also acoustic, this time by Gilmour, who also plays the bass and drums on this one. The intro with bells kinda reminds me of High Hopes on the Division Bell. The lyrics are simple nature loving stuff, as Gilmour has stated his lack of writing proper lyrics. But still, [i]"when that fat old sun in the sky is falling.."[i], simply classic. Gilmours' solo towards the end is also one of his finest.

Summer 68, is very clearly the greatest single written Floyd song by Richard Wright. It has a beautiful melody and a great feeling, a true summer song, with lyrics about the highs and lows of banging groupies, just genious :p This song also has a repeative theme with horns and keyboards, which is very cathy and just cool.

Last we have the another massive piece, constructed around the breakfast of guy named Alan, who was some kind of hifi-guy what ever for Floyd. Alan enjoys his cereals, eggs and bacon and tea and all the stuff limeys usually prefer. The song doesn't reach as epic scapes as the title track but is still very fascinating. The first part is very minimal, with gentle guitars leads and smooth keyboards. The second part is dominated by Gilmour and his two acoustic guitars and the third returns to the athmosphere of the first part. Simple sentence eh? Truly a Floyd classic, a prog classic, a rock classic, a classic in the true meaning of the word.