THE WALL

1979 was not a good year for Progressive Rock, the famous bands were taking the easy road towards a more commercial approach, changing epics and concept albums for songs in short formats, the old but glorious mellotrons and Hammonds were being replaced by simpler and smaller keyboards that tried to simulate with little success the incredible sound of their predecessors. Neo Prog' was trying to keep the interest in Progressive Rock but in a much simpler format, in other words, it was not the time for complex conceptual albums any more.

But against the odds, Roger Waters defied the evolution of rock and released The Wall, an album conceived, and composed by him and for his own glory, it was not a typical Pink Floyd Album but a Roger Waters project with the assistance of Pink Floyd, somehow like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway with Peter Gabriel, The Wall was Roger Waters son.

But how to rate an album that was without doubts one of the best releases of the year but not so good according to Pink Floyd standards, well it's a hard task.

The music is strong but lacks of the deep atmosphere of Dark Side of the Moon or the nostalgic mood of Wish You Were Here, but it's still Pink Floyd and David Gilmour in songs like Comfortably Numb or Run Like Hell doesn't let us forget that. But I believe the most important legacy of The Wall is not the music alone, but the complex and intelligent concept.

Somehow the story is a combination of Roger Waters political views with his childhood traumas and a bit of Franz Kafka influence, especially from his masterpiece The Trial, but still I can feel some clear references from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Honestly I was clueless when I first listened the album, but when I finally caught the thread of the story, I found it very intelligent and interesting.

Won't try to review the album song by song because a conceptual album must be listened as whole entity that is more valuable than the sum of it's parts, and IMO the album as the concept itself are strong, but not enough to reach the level of a masterpiece.

I believe four stars is not the exact rating (3 1/2 would be precise), but the ambition of the project and the effect on the prog' culture deserve some recognition and three stars would not be fair.