When you mention Pink Floyd, most people name-check Dark Side of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall, but somewhere in the middle there was this record: Roger Waters' dark, scathing, study of an Orwellian world where humans are classified as either pigs, dogs or sheep - an allegorical concept straight out of the book Animal Farm. Musically, this is probably the last real triumph of the "classic MKII" line-up of Floyd, as Waters virtually took over everything on The Wall & The Final Cut after it (aside from the odd tasteful guitar solo from David Gilmour) - and there are many who would argue (myself included) that "Dogs" contains the finest guitar work Gilmour ever committed to tape - mostly played on a Telecaster too! "Sheep" also contains Rick Wright's last major contribution on keys to the band, and is reminiscent of "One Of These Days" off the Meddle album in 1971 - even employing a vocoder voice effect for a warped interpretation of "The Lord's Prayer" in the middle of the track. Sinister stuff indeed.
The big aggressive tunes are nicely bookended by two verses of "Pigs On The Wing" - a simple song of hope performed by Waters on acoustic guitar. Overall it was an album that suited the uncertainty and despondency of the times (ie: the socio-political climate in Britain in the late 70's), and proved that a big old dinosaur like Pink Floyd still had something to say after the Punk Rock meteorite hit the Earth....
