coolermaster

I, on the other hand, will go against the tide and say that this is one of my favorite Tull albums!! Salamander from Anthology...of the kind: can you play Hard Rock with the flute? YES! The Checkered Flag, From A Dead Beat...are two splendid ballads...criticized only if one thinks they are Tull, who were (or rather, weren't) very pro-ballad back in the day...Stunning...Nice idea for the Concept...and the comic about the "old rocker" who struggles to adapt to the times (very glam and flashy) but then gets his revenge against the "slut" Salamander! Different and much so from Aqualung and from Songs from the Wood but no less intense for that....I'd say my favorites from Tull are Benefit, Aqualung, and this...absolutely...Thick as a Brick is very overrated, a bit kitsch.

a mediocre review that reveals nothing about the work. For me, those sensations are also given by Red by King Crimson, In Absentia by Porcupine Tree, Anima Latina by Lucio Battisti…..

I am among those who consider Gilmour a God... and if I were a woman, I would have slept with him too! Actually, even without being a woman, almost... Handsome, talented, but most importantly, the most balanced of them all, the TRUE mind...
With Waters (that jerk), I have a love/hate relationship... he was a great frontman, a great songwriter, but also a real jerk... Barrett, well, may his soul rest in peace... the mad inventor, but I know I’m upsetting someone, not essential to the band... With all the respect and gratitude I feel for him... And I love his solo albums too. A genius of Rock in general, but not THE genius of the Floyd...

An excellent album by a truly refined group: Roger Waters has really gathered some great musicians for this second solo effort, after the uncertain "Music for the Body" from '70... The lyrics are beautiful, dark, autobiographical, and the background music is perfectly crafted, almost maniacally... It seems to me that for the best track on the album (Two Suns In The Sunset) he had the great Andy Newmark playing: oh, you can tell... it was about time to change that lousy Mason! The sound has benefitted from it... listen to how classily, how touchingly Newmark paints the drums in the song... Even the guitar finally sounds more "rough," more Rockettara! Enough with those damn languid solos, that nauseating "glissando" of Gilmour… These are truly great musicians! Then let's talk about the lyrics of "The Gunner's Dream," "The Final Cut," "Not Now John".... There’s even one that’s finally angry (not like DavidJohn who always has that clean and languid voice) who at a certain point screams: 'Ndo cazzo sta il bar, John??? Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh, this is what I call transgression, a metaphor for urban alienation, like when in 40-degree shade in August you’re on Viale Scarampo in Milan and you feel like Clint Eastwood in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"... you’re thirsty!! Well, I must say, GREAT ALBUM, really Waters has confirmed himself as the true mind of the Floyd, yes, I’m sorry to say it… it’s just a pity he didn’t call at least out of courtesy the other band members to play with him… but he was nice enough to at least include Gilmour and Mason’s names in the credits… Wright no… because that slacker, drugged-up good-for-nothing didn’t deserve it!! Great performance by Roger Waters… superior to the following year's "The Pros and Cons"…
:-))) Ciauzzzz

Great review, it had me in stitches even though I find it blasphemous to "touch" the Pink.

Sorry guys, just a clarification: RELICS is NOT a "The Best Of"... it's a collection of unreleased and released tracks on 45s, never included on albums... You'll understand that in the CD era having RELICS is not the same as having a THE BEST; it's having the first singles from the Floyd, plus a few gems and a couple of songs from the first 2 albums... Meanwhile, for those who have all the Floyd 45s, the 33s still have the turntable... they don't give a damn about RELICS....
Let's learn to think before we open our mouths.

Tom Traubert, your words are pearls of wisdom! Damn, write a review on AHM yourself...

I mostly agree with the reviewer... The picture painted of London in those years is a bit too apocalyptic... I lived it; in that year my aunt married my uncle (English)... I was a child, but I remember that the placid "good old England" was not in ruins... Lord Dutton, a friend of my uncles, was optimistic :-)))
Animals is a strange album... Every time I listen to it, it leaves something indefinable inside me; only in the two interludes of Dogs can you trace the Floyd of Wish You Were Here, and yet it is still connected to them in some alchemic way... Sheep is disconcerting, metallic, jagged... then the long interlude that reminds us of the past psychedelia... Pigs is my favorite... very '70s...
No, it's not a lack of syntax; it's just that I find it difficult to talk about Animals, an album I loved madly... the strangest album by the Floyd... sometimes I almost try to forget it, thinking about Wish You Were Here, of which, in parts, Animals is indeed similar; it's almost a continuation (certainly much closer to this than to Dark Side)... I don’t know, it gives me a strange effect... Damn, I'm re-listening to it while I write after quite some time... God, it's beautiful... yes, yes, I confirm it’s a masterpiece and continues to be one of my favorites by the Floyd... but at the same time I hate it... I don’t know... it gives me an unsettling feeling.

Oh my God, here we go again......... Which came first, the egg or the chicken?
If by Psychedelia we mean music (any music) where the presence of "effects" (of various kinds) is woven into the score, then I can say with certainty who the inventor was! Fred Buscaglione!! The first in Italy (and perhaps in the world) to use effects (whistles, gunshots, cuckoo clocks) in conventional songs! If, however, by psychedelia we mean lyrics that range from mystical to psychedelic (like Verdone, meaning we young people are in search of freedom of spirit, and so on...) to simple visionary experiences, then in Italy, without a doubt, Modugno was psychedelic (Volare), and in America, Mary Poppins taught children the proper use of drugs...
I mean, let's be clear!
I consider ASOS the first "real" album by the Floyd, if by Pink Floyd we mean the band made up of Waters, Gilmour, Wright, and Mason, with 2 classics also featured (and rearranged) in "Ummagumma" and "Pompeii," which are the Title Track and Set the Controls... Whether it’s psychedelia or not, or whether it starts to lean more towards Kosmic Rock, it doesn’t really matter.... still admitting that the Kosmic Rock of Amon Düül, Ash Ra Tempel, Schulze, Tangerine Dream, and Popol Vuh was not psychedelia, just under another name, but still psychedelia!
I don’t know, let’s make up our minds; let's play the “Linnaeus” game... maybe the time has come....

@Primiballi

I totally agree!