OBSCURED BY CLOUDS

'Obscured by Clouds' is studio album #7 for Pink Floyd, inarguably the most successful progressive band, that fiercely rejected this label. This eerie and melancholic soundtrack album was released in 1972, having been recorded for around a month and a half that same year. It features a gloomy and unclear cover artwork by Hipgnosis, probably the least interesting and uninspiring of all Pink Floyd sleeves; the picture is supposed to depict a man sitting on a tree but it is so distorted that you could hardly recognize anything man-like in this photograph. Of course, on this album we see the classic lineup of Roger Waters, Rick Wright, Nick Mason and David Gilmour.

Where I agree: Being released the year after 'Meddle' and the year before 'Dark Side', 'Obscured by Clouds' can be safely termed a stopgap release for the band. Being a soundtrack album to a French movie that is certainly unpopular, it lacks the coherence and the continuity of the Pink Floyd album, as it is comprised of ten tracks that are seemingly unrelated, except for the common theme of love. As with the band's other soundtrack album, it is not necessarily and essential and exceptional release; Pink Floyd have achieved much greater things in the albums before and after this one. Still, 'Obscured by Clouds' is a very elegant and tranquil album, with lots of acoustic guitars and dreamy synths by Wright; the vocal performance of Gilmour is also quite lovely and the drumming of Mason is as excellent as ever.

Some highlights of this half-instrumental record are 'Mudmen', a very dark and impressive instrumental that is mainly recognizable for the menacing guitars, 'Childhood's End', one of the more memorable and better-written vocal pieces on the album, 'Free Four', the only single from 'Obscured by Clouds' which is a more laid-back, even sing-along tune, and 'Stay', a nice and peaceful song with Rick Wright on lead vocals. The rest of the songs are not band, they are just more standard, and maybe occasionally dull and sleep-inducing.

All in all, this is a mandatory listen for every Pink Floyd fan for sure but it is not a universally astonishing album, it is more of a transitory one, lacking the dynamics and avant-garde sensation of the previous releases by them.