Mike76

For me, a sensational discovery; I already loved the first two albums, but this is unexpectedly a masterpiece that anticipates by a good ten years thematics akin to "The Downward Spiral" (and a bit musically as well, since a tectonic and paranoid track like "Slave to This" would not be out of place in the NIN's setlist, quite the opposite). Unlike others, I don't see it as a separate chapter from the previous works but simply a logical continuation: from the boredom, attempts at escape, and frustration of the first two chapters, one naturally arrives at self-destruction and the torment of this last night in Sodom, not to mention that a dose of pop lightness is nonetheless guaranteed by the single "Soul Inside" and the Jack Hammer cover "Down In The Subway" (1966). The bonus tracks are also very appreciable, including two reinterpretations of the 007 themes by John Barry.

The album, although it can be defined as light like the debut, proves to be less "poppy." It features catchy choruses like in "Women Around the World at Work" or "You Sold The Cottage," but overall the atmosphere is more ethereal and elegant compared to "Metro Music," with unexpected solutions for a pop record (tempo changes, songs transforming into suites only to return to being songs, etc.). All this is achieved without affecting its catchiness in the slightest. An album without timeless hits like "Echo Beach," but also without weak points (perhaps except for the somewhat cheesy Bangles-like "One Day in Paris"), enjoyable both in "background" mode and in "focused listening" mode.

It’s fair to say that with this work, the Floyd have gone to pot.

Unfortunately, I miss this, but I definitely know the title track: pure latent tension.

I don't think I've ever listened to one of their albums in full, at least not in the last twenty years. But how beautiful is "Here Comes The Rain Again"?

They're practically zombies now.

Despite having found "Animal Farm" excellent, I only read "1984" recently. About ten years ago, I wanted to pick it up, but there was a promotional band on the cover that reminded me it was the book that inspired the show "Big Brother," so as a protest, I left it on the shelf... Anecdotes aside, it’s astonishing how starting from a critique of regimes like in "Animal Farm," Orwell was so prescient about certain issues that also pertain to modern democracies: the control of the past, being spied on every moment of our daily lives, the fabrication of an enemy... What Orwell could never have imagined is that today people, through Facebook and other social media, WANT to be spied on. Nevertheless, it's a masterpiece that remains very relevant and conveys a fear of the future that perhaps only "Fahrenheit 451" has managed to evoke in me, not to mention the doubts it raises about the present...

Then you could get lost in endless mental gymnastics about the intellectual honesty of the Marxists who sign for EMI, but who cares, it's great music and that's that.

"Il tuo bacio è così dolce Il tuo sudore è così aspro A volte penso di amarti ma so che è solo lussuria...."

"The Art of Walking" seems to me distant in quality from the first two albums, and indeed there is too much experimentation that goes nowhere, much like in the previous "New Pic-nic Time." In this sense, the cloying "Lost In Art" is a negative example: five minutes of useless pseudo-avant-garde nonsense, to the point that the following "Horses," the only true song in the traditional sense present here, though not much, appears by contrast as a breath of fresh air. However, there are also some good parts: as rightly noted in the reviews, the opening track "Go" and the deconstructed funk of "Rounder" are pearls ("Misery Goats," on the other hand, I find pathetic), as well as the rarefied "Rhapsody In Pink," which, however, seems to borrow the guitar from "Suburban Relapse" by Siouxsie. An album that, while shining only in glimpses, earns a passing grade.