The opening "Atom Heart Mother Suite" turns out to be an incredibly focused and well-written piece of lounge music - despite the band's claims to the contrary.
Indeed, across the years there has been more than a sack-full of derogatory comments from several former Floyd members on the state of their fifth-ever studio effort the most colourful of them are "Atom Heart Mother is a good case, I think, for being thrown into the dustbin and never listened to by anyone ever again!" (Roger Waters, circa 1985) and "God, it's s**t, possibly our lowest point artistically" (David Gilmour, in Mojo Magazine, circa 2001).īut in all honesty, Atom Heart Mother is seriously not that bad - not by any stretch of the imagination in fact, it's probably better than your average band's shot at a fifth album. However, in the case of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother, the band in question is probably just being a little too hard on themselves. When a band goes on record to say that an album of theirs sucks, it's usually a warning worth taking heed of - and certainly as close as one can get to a absolutely honest, sentiment-free critical appraisal. Album DescriptionReview Summary: Pink Floyd's hidden gem - The Dark Side of the Moo. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo More info This lack of focus means Atom Heart Mother will largely be for cultists, but its unevenness means there's also a lot to cherish here. That it lasts an entire side illustrates that Pink Floyd was getting better with the larger picture instead of the details, since the second side just winds up falling off the tracks, no matter how many good moments there are. So, there are interesting moments scattered throughout the record, and the work that initially seems so impenetrable winds up being Atom Heart Mother's strongest moment. "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast," the 12-minute opus that ends the album, does the same thing, floating for several minutes before ending on a drawn-out jam that finally gets the piece moving. Of these, Waters begins developing the voice that made him the group's lead songwriter during their classic era with "If," while Wright has an appealingly mannered, very English psychedelic fantasia on "Summer 68," and Gilmour's "Fat Old Sun" meanders quietly before ending with a guitar workout that leaves no impression. Then, on the second side, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Rick Wright have a song apiece, winding up with the group composition "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" wrapping it up. Still, it may be an acquired taste even for fans, especially since it kicks off with a side-long, 23-minute extended orchestral piece that may not seem to head anywhere, but is often intriguing, more in what it suggests than what it achieves. If anything, this is the most impenetrable album Pink Floyd released while on Harvest, which also makes it one of the most interesting of the era. Buy the album Starting at kr125,79Īppearing after the sprawling, unfocused double-album set Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother may boast more focus, even a concept, yet that doesn't mean it's more accessible.
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