Atom Heart Mother
, for all its glories, was an acquired taste, and
Pink Floyd
wisely decided to trim back its orchestral excesses for its follow-up,
Meddle
. Opening with a deliberately surging
"One of These Days,"
spends most of its time with sonic textures and elongated compositions, most notably on its epic closer,
"Echoes."
If there aren't
pop
songs in the classic sense (even on the level of the group's contributions to
Ummagumma
), there is a uniform tone, ranging from the pastoral
"A Pillow of Winds"
to
"Fearless,"
with its insistent refrain hinting at latter-day
Floyd
.
were nothing if not masters of texture, and
is one of their greatest excursions into little details, pointing the way to the measured brilliance of
Dark Side of the Moon
and the entire
Roger Waters
era. Here,
David Gilmour
exerts a slightly larger influence, at least based on lead vocals, but it's not all sweetness and light -- even if its lilting rhythms are welcome,
"San Tropez"
feels out of place with the rest of
. Still, the album is one of the
's most consistent explorations of mood, especially from their time at
Harvest
, and it stands as the strongest record they released between
Syd
's departure and
Dark Side
. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine