The second and final soundtrack album done by Pink Floyd for the French film, "La Vallée", titled Obscured By Clouds, features an extension of the sound established on the previous Meddle release, and the track listing is split between 4 instrumentals and 6 songs. A few numbers that stand out, for me, are Childhood's End, which showcases some of David Gilmour's best, raw lead guitar work;  Stay, written by Roger Waters and Richard Wright, is sung nicely by Richard, and features some beautiful piano playing, along with a tasteful wah-wah treated guitar from Gilmour. Waters' Free Four is driven by acoustic guitar, with Nick Mason's drum rhythms and Roger's excellent vocal style, and Wot's... Uh the Deal is possibly  one of Pink Floyd's most touching and beautiful ballads ever written, featuring an emotional vocal from David  . The Gold Its In The...is also another track worthy of mention, if nothing else, for Gilmour's biting leads that conjunct in the upbeat and heavy rock flavor displayed here.

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The instrumentals in the title track, Mudmen and When You're In, offer  moments of light and shade, giving a quiet, brooding intensity yet, also display an "off the cuff" approach of musical simplicity. Absolutely Curtains, the album's closing number, features a "Mapubga" tribe chant at its end, which is part of the movie subject matter, arranged nicely by Richard Wright. It's a pleasure to hear Floyd rocking out on numbers like The Gold It's In The... and Childhood's End as well as listening to pastoral-like songs such as Burning Bridges and Mudmen, giving the record a quality of an overlooked, underrated status . As previously stated, I find this record  to be the bridge between the previous Meddle studio album and the proceeding Dark Side of the Moon opus, which, obviously, changed their creative and commercial prospects permanently . On a side note, "Obscured" was recorded rather quickly within a time frame of 2 weeks and perhaps this is why the record has a "rawer" feel to its general sound. Regardless, this is a must have for serious Floyd fans, but is also recommended to casual fans as it can offer a closer look at the group's evolving craft of performance and composition, collectively. 

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Rating Grade- A