ATOM HEART MOTHER

This is my first PINK FLOYD review, and I'd preferred if I could've started with a better album than this flawed record. But in the interest of chronology, I'll say just a few words about a release that has been already very thoroughly discussed.

There's no point in me describing PINK FLOYD. By now only people living in complete isolation of the rest of the world could not know what this legendary band sounds like. Suffice it to say, "Atom Heart Mother" is a transitional point for the group, where the complete mastery of their art hadn't yet been reached, and actually it had just started to be defined.

The direction of PINK FLOYD's sound was not-yet completely evident here. The title-track hints at the spacey-atmospheric future that the British would travel starting with their next release, but most of the rest of the songs lack that particular magic. Psychedelia is here, but it's not sure if it's to stay. The addition of an orchestra is an example of this uncertainty.

The album, ultimately, fails because it's uneven from a musical point of view. After a first brilliant track, the epic "Atom Heart Mother", the remainder of the disc is made of fairly average songs, going all the way down to the mediocre ending number "Alan's psychedelic breakfast", which is poor on any element of interest and sounds more like a failed experiment.

The album has still its moments, though, and as such 3 stars sounds like the correct rating. The best PINK FLOYD was yet to come, but some of their great traits can already be heard in "Atom Heart Mother".