THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

This was one of the first prog albums I heard, like many others, and I can still enjoy it very much; filling my mind with melancholy and a lot of thoughts. It makes me calm down and think about life, future or I just let myself be taken away by the story of the album (the big advantage of listening Floyd).

The relaxing vibes begin right after the climax. Soothing Gilmour vocals and one of Waters best bass moments in my opinion, though often forgotten. You hear so clearly here why Pink Floyd is so amazing in what they do and how they reach such a great sound without too many notes and virtuosity and with amazing feeling for the music.

One of the only choices which is not completely to my liking is, that until the beautiful soundscape of Time there is a total of more than 4 minutes in which I really bore me. I tend to skip On The Run quite often along with the climax at the very start and the ringing clocks. These are all great to listen to, but for me limited to a few times only.

Though we can't forget that the overall ambience is very touching and it is really a cohesive whole. It's one long song with reprises and hints to other parts all the time, making it quite complex and interesting, the Floyd way, indeed.

Going through the whole album, you hear a lot of different sounds and influences, but it's all wrapped up in the unique Floyd sound, which makes it again very interesting due to a lot of variety and a lot of surprises when you heard it for the first time. And that's a very strong point of Pink Floyd, having such a unique, sophisticated sound and still surprise you every time with it.

In contrast with many others, Money is the track with the best Gilmour solo. It's 2 minutes in length and consists of three parts: the sudden change to 4/4 and exposition, the break down part in which it settles down and then the recapitulation which amazingly reflects the beginning of the solo (so all in all it would be ABA'). This mixed with cynic lyrics this makes it one of my faves.

Then the following is the most moving one, both the music and words. It has the best sax solo I've ever heard and the contrast between verse and chorus will always stay very powerful.

Then we flow to a second reprise of the Breathe theme. it makes me think that it's more like one big song, rather than loose pieces. They just made a 40+ minute epic! I use to see this as a foreshadowing of Welcome to the Machine in some way, and via a creative chord progression by Wright we flow to another song.

The contrast between the verse and chorus in Brain Damage make me consider it almost a reprise of Us and Them. Very powerful too.

Finally, how could we end it else than a falling bass line, repetitive lyrics and a last hint to the very start of this all. A way to check if an album is really excellent is asking yourself: does the sound have the same feeling or has it changed? Although the sound is exactly the same as the sound from the intro, does it feel different?

Yes, this essential masterpiece of prog is defenitely excellent and justifies no less than 5 stars.