ANIMALS

Animals is the most guitar oriented album by Pink Floyd: David Gilmour abundantly uses acoustic and electric guitars. Animals is also a "David Gilmour" album, less a "Roger Waters" one, because it sounds a bit like his first solo album, made during the same time. Rick Wright's keyboards are sometimes subtly floating highly in the background; he often uses an ambient organ, some excellent Fender Rhodes parts, and spacy & experimental moog sounds. The bass is put on evidence here, being loud, present and quite bottom. The drums are varied and not continuous; they are often asynchronous. Roger Waters and David Gilmour share the lead vocals. On each track, there are the corresponding animal sounds produced. Animals is a visceral & underground album, less "superproduced" compared to the 2 previous albums: it brings you ineffable fascinating feelings, slightly marginal.

On "Dogs", some of the barking dogs are electronically reproduced. During the stagnant floating part of "Dogs", there is a repetitive sound sounding similar to the Violet District's "Terminal Breath" track. The floating keyboards are very intense and remind me the Gandalf of the 70's or the 2 first Taï Phong's albums. Gilmour brilliantly mixes acoustic and electric guitars together.

On "Pigs", the keyboards of the intro has probably inspired Mike Rutherford for the making of the "Smallcreep's Day" album. "Pigs" is more rhythmic with aggressive guitars and less keyboards.

"Sheep" starts with a delightful Fender Rhodes part, then Roger Waters sings while Gilmour plays a razor and incisive rhythmic guitar; after that, floating keyboards embark; then, 5 minutes after the beginning, one of the best dynamic & floating keyboards ambience made by Wright occurs: it just lasts couples of seconds, but is is AWESOME: just turn up the volume! The music then continues with electronically modified voices similar to the ones in the intro of the Tangerine dream's "Bent cold sidewalk" track; the track ends with EXTREMELY incisive electric guitar riffs, which make the King Crimson's "Sailor's Tale" riffs sound sissy!

The 2 acoustic "Pigs on the wing" tracks are very similar to the "Wish you were here" track, which can easily be played with an acoustic guitar in front of a fireplace.

Rating: 4.5 stars