I picked up the Orb/Gilmour collaboration Metallic Spheres today. I’m about two months late to the party, but I wasn’t even aware of it until a week ago.
Has anyone else heard it?
I’m familiar with the Orb’s '90s output in passing, but I’m a big Floyd fan, and this album sounds like a rebirth of mid-70s Floyd at their spaciest. It recalls the spacier parts of everything recorded between A Saucerful of Secrets and The Wall, from the pastoral passages of Meddle to the electronica of “Any Colour You Like”. “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 1” is another reference point. It sounds dated, I suppose, even from the POV of techno (though I’m no expert on the genre), but it seems designed to sound like another era anyway.
IMHO, if you listen to Floyd for Waters’ lyrics or the more focused songs, forget this album. But, without hyperbole, I think this is the best Floyd-related album since The Wall. It’s that good. If only Rick Wright were around to add his distinctive flourishes…
Haven’t actually heard this yet–it’s on my Christmas list. It does happen to be today’s featured CD over on the Progressive Ears forum. And there’s a fun app for the album on the iTunes store that lets you play with the mix of various loops and samples (while trailing fireworks in space from wherever you touch the screen ).
Well, I’d expect mixed reactions from prog fans. There’s nothing particularly challenging about the album, and the drum loops sound like some pre-programmed setting on a drum machine. But shifts in tone and style do catch you by surprise, and the total effect is space rock for the modern era (or maybe the 1990s-onwards).
I’d say more traditionalists would be disappointed. This is no Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or Close to the Edge. Have you liked what you’ve heard?
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