A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON

I'm giving Lapse five stars. Not because I think the album is under-rated (which I do) and want to skew the overall total upwards (which I don't, because I enjoy it regardless of whether others rate it a five or a zero), but because I really think it deserves a perfect score.

I listened to all kinds of music in my childhood and teenage years. With the easy availability of music through the internet today, I've gone back and listened to much of it again. My usual reaction is "I can't believe I used to like this crap!" But Pink Floyd is a delightful exception - I appreciate it more now than I did back then. I can pick out elements on Pink Floyd's music that I never consciously heard before, and they're all good.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason has all the ingredients that make Floyd such a great band - the haunting, emotional guitar on Terminal Frost and Sorrow, the poetic lyrics of Learning to Fly, the off-the-wall (no pun intended) notion of being locked in a machine for a lifetime. But it has something else that I haven't heard since The Wall - this album perfectly expresses desperation. It's as emotionally powerful as anything Pink Floyd has ever done. Listeners can feel the hope in Learning to Fly, then feel it curshed in Dogs of War. Each track is a different emotion, and if listened to in order, the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. And in true Pink Floyd tradition, the more I listen, the more elements I am able to discover, and each of them subtly adds to the quality of the track.

I try to stay away from the Waters/Gilmour debate. I don't see Lapse as a vindication of Gilmour or the clever forgery Waters claims it is. I just see it as a great album, one with songs that penetrate into my emotions and touch a part of me other music doesn't even know exists.

Five stars, deliberately and with no apologies. Five stars all the way.