Pink Floyd - Meddle

9.0 - England - 1971

- Masterpiece - 

Like Atom Heart Mother, but with a bit more polish and without an orchestra and choir.  Wanting to eschew the association with psychedelic spaciness, the group opted to recast “Echoes” in an underwater rather than intergalactic setting.  Not that it makes all that much difference – the track is still thoroughly science-fictiony (not necessarily a bad thing for a Floyd track).  The verse sections that bookend the side-long piece feature some of the band’s best melodicism, but the middle-section (before the seagull e-bow weirdness) showcases the group’s thoroughly underrated funkiness (double-tracked drums: how can you go wrong?).

The more normal (or at least normal-length) songs that make up the first side of the album are all fairly solid.  “One Of These Days” is justly famous for its arresting two bass groove, and “A Pillow Of Winds” and “Fearless” demonstrate once again that Pink Floyd could do pastoral acousticism as well as electric space rock.  Quality control dips a little bit for “San Tropez” and “Seamus”, but bear in mind that the latter features a dog trained to howl whenever he hears a twelve bar blues progression, which has to count for something.