The Floyd-Hole: Every Pink Floyd Album - Part 6

 MEDDLE - REVIEW

This albums starts with a track called One Of These Days, opening to a funky bassline, some echoing synthesizer hits, and a hard grinding steel guitar. I get very "post-apocalyptical" vibes from this track; very classic Mad Max sounds. It's hard-banging like a roadhouse jukebox, and very much not what I was expecting from PF at this point. I can dig it.

The next track, A Pillow of Winds, softly brings things back down to a mellow place, emulating the common PF twee sound, complete with airy hippie singing and gentle acoustic guitar melodies. It's a sad-sounding track - the softness feels more like a cradling against misery, rather than relaxation for relaxation's sake.

Fearless comes next, perhaps as a salve against the malaise of the previous track - it's far more upbeat and jaunty. It's still more of that twee sound, but a hard-hitting guitar keeps things peppy and positive throughout. It has a nicely-threaded "countrified" sound running through it with steel guitars and tinny piano work. I've noticed that all three tracks thus far has suffered a bit from repetitiveness, but this song at least has more of a "wave-like" quality of ups and downs that helps to break things up somewhat.

San Tropez is sheer twee in the literal sense, probably the most painfully quaint song PF has done up to this point. It sounds like it would be at home on Sesame Street, with its sickly-sweet singing and simplistic plodding beat. I half-expected a voice to chime in and teach me the alphabet, especially over the instrumental second half of the song.

Seamus is punctuated by dog noises (which I suppose is fitting, as the song is about a hound dog named Seamus). As expected for a song about hound dogs, this one has a lot of that country twangy guitar sound, like with Fearless, though with a bit of a blues slant. I felt the track ended on a somewhat abrupt note just as it was starting to get good, probably because it's the shortest track on the album; as it stands, it sounds half-finished.

Finally we come into Echoes, the big 23-minute song that makes up the latter half of the album. The lead in has a strange sonar ping-type noise that eventually disappears into organ music and a mournful plucked guitar, with more of that hallmark airy, harmonized singing. This part of the album feels like PF getting back to its experimental nature again though, with interesting effects and sound engineering interspersed throughout. Things definitely turn a bit more "funky" at at around the 7:30 mark - the organ sounds like it was lifted from a gospel-funk album, and the guitar has a wailing, gritty edge to it. The classic PF sci-fi sound rears its head about halfway through too, with things taking on a very "alien planet" soundscape shortly after the 11-minute mark, complete with screechy noises and what I can only describe as a "faux-theremin" effect. The latter half is definitely feeling a lot less musical than the beginning; there's a patch between 11:00 and 15:00 that has virtually nothing I'd call music in it. Eventually Echoes ramps back in with more of that pinging sound, but by now the track has changed its tone so severely it doesn't resemble any of the music that preceded it. The guitar picks up at a faster, fervent pace but the background organ playing remains slow and steady - a juxtaposition that works very well as a denouement, surprisingly. Then things fall back into twee, and I'm left confused - I suppose this song wants to be a "ride" of sorts, but I believe it lacks the uniform experience I was expecting that ties everything together into a single cohesive piece (beyond the consistent organ playing in the background). It's not the worst long PF song I've heard, but then, the competition is pretty limited so far, and being "not the worst" is hardly a compliment either. I'm left with no real strong feelings towards Echoes one way or the other, which is unfortunate for a song that's intended to drive the emotions of the listener.

Overall: Meddle has highs and lows, which unfortunately left it feeling very average when everything is taken in at once. PF has definitely settled on their sound at this point - hippy twee mixed with progressive experimental psychedelic - but it still feels like they've yet to master that sound. At best, I could say this album was mostly pleasant and relaxing. At worst, I could say this album is forgettable. It neither offends, nor entices. All-in-all, not bad, but not great either (Meddle? More like Middle, amirite?).