ANIMALS

This was by far the hardest Pink Floyd album for me to review. I gave 'Dark Side' 5 stars, and 'Wish You Were Here' 4 stars. Here, I was faced with a problem: I prefer 'Animals' to 'WYWH' by a long shot, but I can't really rate it equally to 'Dark Side'. 4.5 stars is the obvious solution but not an option on this website. I rounded down to 4 simply because the album has many more 5's than 4's already. But the extent of my reviewing justifies an album that I still believe deserves nothing more (or less) than 4.5 stars.

With 'Animals', the Floyd changed their tactics a little bit (not a lot though), deciding to do away with all their usual guest musicians (EVEN THE SAXOPHONIST!!!) and create a strictly four-man sound. This format lends itself nicely to the content and concept of 'Animals', resulting in a much darker and rawer sound. Gilmour's 'Dogs' is brilliantly nasty, with some top-notch soloing and appropiate instrumentation (not over-produced like 'Shine on...'). And lyrically it is faultless. 'Pigs' has a quirky yet equally dark nature to it, not entirely worthy of it's 11-minute length but effective nonetheless. And lyrically it is faultless. 'Sheep', my personal favourite, is fantastically hard- edged, very cruel yet fun, and showcases more of Wright's playing, which is always a good thing. And lyrically it is, you guessed it, faultless. The other little song(s) is irrelevant (existant only to increase the number of tracks on the album) but harmless anyway.

Overall, 'Animals' has some of the band's best lyrical content, and definately their best instrumental skill. But it does also have, to a lesser degree, the same problem I outlined with 'WYWH', which is that there is simply less to explore and appreciate then 'Dark Side'. On this album, the issue is nowhere near as large as on 'Wish You Were Here', and the production is suitably less tight. But it still just doesn't quite sit up there with the soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz. Shining moments outweigh those on 'WYWH' (excuse the pun), hence the 4.5 I wanted to give it, and I very almost chose the 5 star after refreshing my memory of the vocoder'ed Psalm 23 reference. But it's had enough praise. 4 stars shouldn't dent it too much.