ATOM HEART MOTHER

On Atom Heart Mother one can see some signs of what was to come on Meddle. The acoustic ballad If, for example, is strongly reminiscent of the acoustically based songs from that album. However, Atom Heart Mother was still very much a psychedelic album; a child of the 60's. Summer '68 even explicitly celebrates this decade in which Pink Floyd still were very much stuck at this time. Summer '68 has very Beach Boys- like vocal harmonies. But these songs lack memorable melodies.

The side long title track is a symphonic piece, complete with a symphony orchestra. This could have been interesting, but there is unfortunately nothing memorable about it. I have listened through this track several times and the only thing I can remember about it is that there were a choir and a symphony orchestra involved. That is not a good sign! The closing track, Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast symbolises exactly what I don't like about (much of) Pink Floyd's music. This "song" is based on samples of someone making breakfast! Musically it is going absolutely nowhere. It gets boring right from the very start and it has nothing at all to do with progressive rock - this is pure psychadelic experimentation (like The Beatles Revolution Number 9). This sort of thing was perhaps interesting in 1968, but was very dated in 1970.

Overall, to say that I'm not impressed with this album is an understatement. The sonic quality of the album is not bad though and this together with the presence of one or two half decent songs keeps me from giving this the lowest rating. Thankfully, things would get a bit better for Pink Floyd later on.

Only for fans and collectors this one.