OBSCURED BY CLOUDS

This is an album that the casual fan may not know. That is unfortunate as it is a last look at Floyd before the DSotM. There are some hints as to what is to come, and there is plenty to enjoy here. OBC has lots of Richard Wright and David Gilmour, and they deliver. RW's Stay is an excellent song with a surprise in that what one originally believes is a love song turns out to be a song about a one-niter. DG's Childhoods End has lyrics that would make Roger Waters proud. There are several instrumentals here and all of them range from good to excellent (Mudmen being my fav). Waters foreshadows future topics with Free Four which deals with getting on with ones life and also with death.

Obscured by Clouds is a soundtrack to the movie La Vallee. It contains many individual tracks that do not make a concept album as future albums do, nor does it have the pristine production as the classic Floyd albums. What it does have is a band stretching and playing (especially Wright who gets more prominence then usual with both vocals and the keys) w/o all of the extras. An underrated gem!

4 stars!