Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

There is always life in a beast with pedigree, no matter its age, all that the one walking by its side needs to know is that it will grow and protect, that it will offer guidance, sympathy, and a sense of freedom throughout its existence.

We live in a period of musical beginnings, in the ability to recognise that even the most classic of albums deserve to be listened to again as if they were new, that they had been conceived, written, and produced with the technology we have at our disposal today…and thank which ever deity or belief that you hold dear that this facility is there, that we no longer have to demand aural sophistication, we are presented it and we gratefully devour it, like pigs maybe, but not a scrap gets left behind.

Pink Floyd don’t tend to do things by half, the ethos of the group has always been to deliver the finest music possible, and they were early pioneers of various forms of construction and delivery, they have lived, and then thrived, through moments where an integral part of their early vision was to become a casualty of success, where they imploded, and arguments and egos threatened the very name of the band.

This nature of fact could have threatened to derail the release of one of the group’s finest moments, the 2018 remix of the phenomenal 1977 record, Animals. Thankfully for the fan, for music in general, the remix has finally been come out from the shadows, restored, remixed, re-analysed and remarkable.

The album requires little introduction, and yet this could be seen as not paying respect to the sheer and colossal endeavour that has gone on behind the scenes to create, or even recreate, magic.

From the opening softness of the short-lived, but sensual Pigs On The Wing (Part One), the album’s brilliance is soon apparent as the Animal Farm inspired tracks, Dogs, Pigs (Three Different Ones), and Sheep not only announce themselves to the public, they take to the metaphorical stage with confidence, with the self-assurance of the respectable and dramatically inclined.

The 2018 remix is an obsession, the dynamic of Gilmour, Waters, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright on show is never finer, and unfortunately, even with the magnificent follow up of The Wall to come, they would never reach again as a collective.

It is to the obsession of the album that the music on offer via this 2018 remix is as utterly class as it is, each note, you feel, has been scrutinised, poured over, and magnified to the point where the album is restored to its proper place as being the finest moment of Pink Floyd’s catalogue; even if you have a personal favourite amongst the others, the forty plus minutes on Animals has, as this remix amplifies absolutely, never been beaten.

Moody and marvellous, the Animals have been released once again, and they are in control.

Ian D. Hall