ANIMALS

'Animals' is the first album where we can see the dominance of Roger Waters starting to peak through. He has sole writing credit on almost all of the songs as well as most of the lead vocals and all lyrical content. Though, the band members still contribute greatly to the sound, with Wright providing plenty of keyboard flourishes and Mason's drums are good as always. Sonically, this is the band's most dark and tense effort, which no doubt coincides with the lyrical content by Waters. And of course the compositions are strong as well, mostly relying on that classic Floyd sound.

'Pigs On the Wing' parts one and two are acoustic pieces that function to bookend the album. These aren't terribly necessary, and the band probably could have gotten away with just three songs.

'Dogs' is the only song with co-writing credits to Gilmour, and it shows. Much of the song is dominated by guitar, and Gilmour offers some of his best solos throughout. The other members do a fine job, especially Wright, whose keyboards in some parts give the song a nice flowing jam-like feel. The only knock I can place on this song is the middle section that perhaps drags on a bit too long. But despite that, this is easily one of Floyd's best songs.

'Pigs' begins with a beautiful soundscape of flowing bass and keyboard, and some heavier guitar chords. The song follows this soundscape until about four minutes where the melody changes. Gilmour shows his creativity by providing a nice talk-box effect on his guitar for the middle instrumental section to slightly resemble pig sounds. The songs ends with a tense but classic guitar solo from Gilmour.

'Sheep' starts off very calm with Wright's tranquil keyboards, but by two minutes the band explodes into one of Pink Floyd's most upbeat and heavy sections, based around a simple but heavy bass riff from Roger. A more laid-back atmospheric section similar to One of These Days relives us for a few moments before chaos ensues again. The song ends with a simple but heavy guitar riff which slowly fades.

Animals is a classic Pink Floyd record and is on the same level of quality as Dark Side and Wish You Were Here. I would say this is the last album where the band is truly a cohesive unit, and thus the last "true" Pink Floyd album; but what a good album it is.

10/10