ANIMALS

Can't figure this one out. Every song begins nicely enough, and as a prog fan, the lengths of the three focus tracks shouldn't be that much of a problem. Unfortunately, all of ''Dogs'', ''Pigs'' and ''Sheep'' could have been trimmed by 1/3 of their length and I'd be more interested. Many of the jams are of little interest to me and either go nowhere or are too boring. The instrumental breaks are too sedated and slumpy with the rhythm section not really doing much.

''Sheep'' is the best song here as there is some form of dynamic building and dropping here. Both this track and ''Pigs'' show an aggressive side to Pink Floyd never before heard, possibly to counter the punk trend starting at that time. ''Dogs'' has a few interesting guitar chords and synth lines, and Gilmour delivers a fine vocal performance. However, ANIMALS brings out the weakness of Roger Waters's angry, higher registered vocals; they become so grating over time.

It seems that ANIMALS is the beginning of Waters assuming control of Pink Floyd; most of the writing credits are his as well as most of the singing. The long jamming is really the major problem here; I've always had problems with long Pink Floyd songs as many of them have five to ten minutes of fluff. The two ''Pigs on the Wing'' parts aren't necessary either, just two simple acoustic jams. Start your Pink Floyd search with DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, and come here after a couple of albums.