I put the goddamn needle on the record, expecting more of that bloated cosmic nonsense the longhairs love so much—space whales moaning into the void, philosophy in bell-bottoms. But Meddle… Meddle crawls out of the speaker like a drunk on the floor of a flophouse. It doesn’t ask for your time; it steals it.

“One of These Days” hits like a bar fight in slow motion—no words, just bass and menace, like a guy grinding his teeth before he breaks your nose. Then they start whispering “I’m going to cut you into little pieces” and you believe them.

The rest of it drips in and out—some of it too clean, too careful, like rich boys playing with existential dread. But then there’s ‘San Tropez’ which casually breaks dissonance like Audrey Hepburn on a bad acid trip, scrapping the cliffs of the Côte d’Azur in a stolen Alfa Romeo, running from her past and a Greek tycoon with a hit out on her. But “Echoes,” Christ, man. That’s the sound of a man staring at the ceiling fan at 3 a.m., trying to remember if he left the gas on or if God ever really loved him. It’s 23 minutes of drowning slowly, and somehow it feels like living.

It’s not beautiful. It’s not ugly. It’s true. And that’s rare.

7 whiskeys out of 6.