ANIMALS

Pink Floyd was always a solid band that maintained their classical sound and style even in the hardest moments when they lost key members like Syd Barret and Roger Waters or when all the rest of the progressive bands considered they had to start a radical change in order to survive.

"Animals" is a prove of this regularity, released in 1977 when the first peak of Prog Rock was in the past and bands as Genesis and Yes were starting to mix some radio friendly tracks with their usual music and beginning to flirt with pop, but Pink Floyd released a semi-conceptual album much more complex than the two previous masterpieces, like trying to show the path to the rest of the prog' bands.

Even the length of the tracks (three 10 minutes + songs) was unexpected for the end of the 70's when all the bands were trying to make shorter tracks that could fit the radio requirements.

Based in Orwell's Animal Farm, even when is not an adaptation, "Animals" is a very obscure album in a year when all the bands tried to be simpler and lighter this great release would never be a financial success as "Dark Side of the Moon" or considered an Icon as "Wish You Were Here", but IMHO it has the same quality of the ones mentioned and the last real masterpiece by Pink Floyd.

Some months ago I was talking about "Animals" with a friend and he told me that this release showed a more developed Pink Floyd, a phrase with which didn't agree in that moment. It's clear Animals has many more clear references to British Psychedelia than any album after Atom Heart Mother and in many parts reminiscent of Wish You Were Here, even when the band manages to create something original and extremely creative.

But after some days and a couple more of listens started to agree more with my friend, "Animals" has some of the typical aggressiveness of Punk Rock, they needed to change in order to survive but they did it with respect for their history and fans.

"Pigs on the Wing" is a beautiful semi acoustic track by Roger Waters, but the soft music has a great contrast with the pain expressed in the lyrics, it's clear that Roger was taking the band an starting to express with more freedom his political point of view.

"Dogs" is the central track of the album, a 17 minutes epic that resumes Pink Floyd career, great guitar solos by David Gilmour, incredible vocals by him and Roger and of course intelligent lyrics. The constant changes are soft, not as radical as other progressive bands did before, but they manage to include something of each musical moment in the history of Pink Floyd. One of the best tracks ever released by the band.

"Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is a hard track more in Rock vein; the lyrics are absolutely aggressive and political. I can listen clear psychedelic references along the song.

If you think the lyrics of the previous tracks are controversial, then the ones in "Sheep" could be considered almost offensive and anti religious, the masses are described as weak followers always afraid of the everything and spend their lives eating and surviving in order to have a chance to grow old. Roger's bass is outstanding and Rick is also brilliant with the keys. The guitar section near the end is simply amazing.

"Pigs on the Wing Part Two" sounds almost exactly to part one, but the lyrics express a bit more of optimism or at least is less depressing than the first one.

"Animals" is probably the last album released by Pink Floyd that can achieve the status of masterpiece, even when the decline in this band was less evident than in most of the other members of the big 5 group.

I can't give less than 5 stars to this wonderful albums.