MEDDLE

While this album is flawed, it is a very good addition to a prog collection. The album is not a masterpiece, but Echoes is for me their best song and ranks up there with Tarkus, and Close to the Edge. This album combines folk, rock, and psycheledic music. In fact, this album is similar to Tarkus by the fact that there is a masterpiece long epic, and the rest is mostly filler.

One of these days 9/10 : what a perfect song! dark, scary, sinister. The best part of it is its middle section with a bass using an echo pedal.

Pillow of Winds 6/10 : Follows with a pretty acoustic guitar driven song. Nothing essential, but it helps the flow of the album.

Fearless 6/10 : A good soft rocker with a memorable ascending riff. Nothing to blow you away though, and the ending has a stadium like cheering that annoys me a lot.

San Tropez 4/10 : A silly poppy roger waters song that doesn't do anything for me. Very weak.

Seamus : 1/10 : This is HORRIBLE! it is a bad uninspired common blues piece with a dog barking all over it. What were they thinking? this is the worst Pink Floyd song (even worse than the worst songs of the first 2 albums)

Echoes : 10/10 this song for me ranks up there with the best psychedelic songs. An obscure psychedelic masterpiece from the band's Pre-Dark Side of the Moon history. Lasting about 23 minutes, starts with a highly vibrating piano note, continues mellow with a slow and brilliant buildup, then it gets denser and stronger with loud descending/crescending guitar riffs and incredibly good vocal harmonies until a long slow guitar solo comes, and it transports you into a trippy section of sound effects until it builds up again into the main theme and ends.

So if you want to buy this album, do it only for the opener and closer tracks. The rest is mediocre.

My Grade : B