MEDDLE

Meddle is easily my favourite Pink Floyd record, and that is saying a lot since Pink Floyd is my favourite band by far. Pink Floyd was in a period of their career where they just left their Barret kind of style and before they would make their classic albums like "Dark Side of The Moon" and "The Wall". That's why this is my favourite Floyd album perhaps, it contains the best of both worlds.

Meddle only has 6 songs on it, but still runs for about 45 minutes. It was brought out before cd's existed so it's easily to divide this into 2 parts. The first part contains the first 5 songs which are all very different and great in their own right. The album takes of with the eerie track "One of these days". It's a song containing only the line "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces". The song is bass driven and has a very cool slide guitar. The drums are also very noticeable here, so all in all for such a simplistic instrumental track it's very cool. "A pillow of winds" is a very mellow one but flows very well with the spacy mood this album has. There aren't many solos on the record like on other albums but it's more about textures and this song is a fine example of a good layered song. Up next is "Fearless" which features one of the best riffs ever written by David Gilmour which is complemented by beautiful vocal lines. This track is the best song on the first half of the record and it ends with a sample of Liverpool fans singing "you'll never walk alone". Up next is the groovy San Tropez which is another favourite of mine and that's mainly because of the mood in this song. I always feel like I'm on Hawaii when listening to it and can't help but dance and groove to it. It has some nice piano playing too. The last song is a bluesy song with a crying dog, a pretty neat idea and a pretty neat little song.

The first half was great and all but the second half is were is all about! Consisting of only 1 song, Pink Floyd reached the limits of space rock here and made the finest track they made throughout their entire career. "Echoes" is her name and it's nothing but pure musical bliss. The intro are floating sounds of space and submarines which last for a full 3 minutes, then the vocals kick in and the song really picks up. The vocals are done by David Gilmour and Rick Wright, making perfect soothing harmonies. The lyrics tell of a beautiful surrealistic world which I wouldn't mind being in myself. Although the song last for more than 23 minutes the song already reaches it's highlight when the solos comes in around the 6 minute mark. Although far from his most technical solo, Gilmour never puts as much emotion in a solo as in this one. After this tremendous solo the song goes into a long jam eventually fading out to gradually build up again ending into another sung part around the 20 minute mark. The outro is about the same as the intro, thus ending the best song ever made (Yup, that's quite a statement I know) I also love the lyrics too death.

All in All, this little album here stands as one of my top 3 records ever. It wasn't a big hit compared to their latter albums, and it's only a sub-classic but it sure is underrated. The best thing about it is probably the mood it has and the textures and layers they've put into it. I always feel light-headed and completely relax when I listen to it and I never get bored of it. Very recommended!