EVERYONE IS EVERYBODY ELSE

What can I say.... this is my favourite album of all time. It delivers a powerful political message in the most english and resigned of ways. It almost cries out in reserved despair about the inevitable helplessness of every one of the negative situations that it portrays. The sound to me is wonderfully bleak at times as well as being thrillingly full when the melotrone and lead guitar are going full throttle to a quality that gives messers Gilmour and Wright a run for their money. What I love most about this album is that every single minute of it is good (except the grating opening chords of Crazy City which break the melancholy mood). We know Child of the Universe and For No One are classics..... particularly For No One, with it's soaring finale and it's anthemic lyrics that I have carried with me since I was a teenage. But the album is so much more than just these songs. Negative Earth and Paper Wings show Mel Pritchard to be a true innovator as he virtually conducts the music with his drumkit... the orchestra may not be in the recording but Mel is still conducting them as the tempo switches this way and that with sometimes just a bare nod to any steady beat. This is brilliant and understated musicianship, just like the rest of the indtrumentation on the album. I love the folk rock of Poor Boys Blues and Mill Boys too but to me the pinnacle of this record is the guitar solo at the end of 1974 mining disaster, the arrangement is truly inspired, the guitar solo is outstanding and the overall effect is one of the most magical pieces of music ever recorded. The spirit of this album reminds me of the time I was splitting up with a very close girlfirend of mine and we just held each other and cried together in silence... a kind of deep elation in the unification we felt from sharing our sadness... to me that is what this album is in both words and music a painfully english lament that is so beautifully executed that we cry in quiet ecstasy along with it.