THE WALL

This is without a doubt a masterpiece of Rock. IT may not be prog, but it has the famous emotional story of a rock star in it. It is much less virtuosic and restrained than the previous 'animals' but it has songwriting of the highest level, and unlike 'lamb lies down on broadway' this album contains strong material in both CDs.

Starting out with strong and heavy 'In The Flesh', the album starts already in frustuation, sadness, and anger. The musician "Pink"'s father has died in the World War II when he was a baby. The first CD is about him hating reality and building a wall on his mind to hide from it and let insanity take over him. This CD includes the highlights 'another brick on the wall pt I' with its echo guitar; 'mother' with its beauty and guitar solo ; "Goodbye Blue Sky" also with mellow darkness, "Don't Leave Me Down" due to the psychedelic atmosphere. The rest of the songs are all solid and at the end of the CD, The wall is complete.

The Second CD is about Pink being inside the wall, losing all sense and becoming insane imagining being a Hitler like figure, until he shouts 'STOP!' and confronts his problems and succeeds. The opener is a big highlight of the album with its pretty acoustic section contrasted with the heaviness following which contains the trademark Wall riff (E, F#, G, F# ... E, F#, G, F# ... and so on). The next song is also a highlight with its soft acoustic piece of beauty. Comfortably Numb is a famous tune which contains a great sing along chorus, and two of the best guitar solos from Gilmour. My other favorites are Run Like Hell in which you can clearly feel paranoia in the music and of course the climax 'The trial' which contains a very majestic arrangement of strings and explodes in guitars and a deep Voice of the Judge.

Because this album is not progressive, it doesn't mean it is not good. This is a landmark of music history, and we should be glad this album is famous. WE should be angry if Linkin Park becomes famous which feels like it has already happened.

Non-prog cannot get better than this. It blows away most non-prog albums, and the material sounds much better on a live format. My Grade : A