MEDDLE

Floyd continues along its classic path with Meddle, an album that is finally showing the band as a whole. While past efforts Saucerful of Secrets (3 stars in my opinion) and Atom Heart Mother (4 stars) showed the band trying to break from Syd's legacy, Meddle boasts many good tracks. Atom was fairly well-realized, but pales in comparison to this.

One of these Days: Wind effects and bass and finally guitar open into Roger's wierd voice : "ONE OF THESE DAYS I'LL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF". A more fast-paced track than the following. The album is underwater themed, you can hear it already. Mason's reverse cimbals and Wright's bursts of keyboard eventually come to the fabled line and some real Floyd jamming.

A Pllow of Winds: So relaxing and sleepy... I can hardly stay awake listening to this. Gilmour vocals and slow keyboards and very nice acoustic guitar. This has a very bluesy feel.

Fearless: Another slow-paced song. You'll never walk alone, Rogers and Hammerstein, plays in reverse at the beginning and end. A repetetive bass line and guitar line going up to a quick cimbal. The lyrics emphasize independence.

San Tropez: Catchy, but Roger's vocals are borderline off-key. Very jazzy. Pink Floyd began as the Abdabs way way back, and I've heard it was a jazz band. Not suprising when you hear this album. Very bluesy/jazzy.

Seamus: One of Floyd's old dog songs. The band's little unofficial mascot dog can be heard in several early tracks. This is one of them: he sings right along right with this short little bluesy-song.

Echoes: One of those beautiful long tracks. A submarine bell and a wailing Gilmour guitar start up the bass and melodic drumming. Builds a long time with very nice atmospheric keyboards. Then Wright led vocals with lyrics that seem to remind of Astronomy Domine. Strange lyrics but very pretty. The main theme of guitar follows and builds slowly. Then a keyboard jam continues, with a good drum line and some guitar. It slowly fades away into a really long bit with crows and screaching guitar notes. Then slowly the submarine note awakens a slowly rebuilding theme. The Wright vocals start back after the long rebuilding continues. It's hard to express the pleasure of hearing the theme rebuild. The theme leaves as it began, the submarine bell and suddenly a strange sound affect going up and up and up and up...