AQUALUNG

Despite a few flaws with the productions, and the fairly irritating and repetitive Mother Goose, I cannot in good conscience give an album with Locomotive Breath and Wond'ring Aloud any lesser rating. The concepts of the individual songs are in and of themselves excellent, and work excellently both in and outside the album. There are some great harder moments (particularly Locomotive Breath and Up To Me), dark, tragic, gleeful and sarcastic lyrics which never seem out of place, and acoustic pieces better than any of those on Minstrel In The Gallery. I, for some reason, don't particularly like Mother Goose and Slipstream (which seems a little weak compared to the other acoustic bits), but that doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the album as a whole. An album which lacks polish, but is only better because of it.

The bonus material's not bad, and the version of Bouree is great.

Favourite Tracks (couldn't pick one): Locomotive Breath and Wond'ring Aloud Rating: 9.5/10