Pink Floyd
Obscured By Clouds

THE REVIEW

Perhaps the least known album of Pink Floyd, overshadowed by the colossal success of "The Dark Side of The Moon" the following year, is "Obscured By Clouds" from '72.

The Pink Floyd return to collaborating with the German director Barbet Schroeder three years after creating the soundtrack for "More." This time, the film in question is "La Vallée," to whose title the name of the album is added for obvious commercial reasons.

The most interesting thing is that here Pink Floyd engage for the first time with the simple song format: the resulting album is not as polished as the subsequent "Dark Side," it does not concern itself with delving into deep thematic layers like the previous "Meddle," but presents us with a humble, vaguely bucolic group, at ease in the pursuit of a lyric-driven pop typical of British tradition, with refined melodies and relaxing atmospheric passages, indulging in few psychedelic and experimental whims.

More than a transitional album, it's evidently a separate moment in Pink Floyd's artistic journey, useful especially for exploring the inner side of the musicians, in a context distant from the psychedelic lights and smokes of success. Whether one likes it or not, the approach to a certain pop dimension, moving away from a more experimental search, is nonetheless fundamental for the future of the band, just listen carefully to the melodic side of "Dark Side" or some of the later acoustic ballads.

Returning to the album, it's evident that the instrumental passages are by far the most successful: we realize it immediately, with the pre-apocalyptic intro of the title track and the transition with When you're in which at the end, with that something of minimalism, makes it clear how a couple of simple riffs are worth more than a thousand-note solo...

I will stop here, you undoubtedly understand that this is an album absolutely to listen to and re-evaluate.