THE PROS AND CONS OF HITCH HIKING

This could have really been a great album if just about any guitarist besides Eric Clapton was hired for lead guitar duties. He's well passed his prime by the time of the release of this album. On it, he manages to either badly imitate Gilmour, or play very badly in the traditional Clapton style. Regardless of which of these he's doing, his tone is horrendous and really distracts from the good compositions.

Musically the album is very similar to The Wall, which is to be expected. If the album were created by Pink Floyd I believe it would be every bit as good as the wall, but without those fantastic musicians some of it really does suffer. Besides Eric Clapton, the material also suffers somewhat from the drumming of Andy Newmark who tries to imitate Mason, and the Hammond of Andy Brown adds a really vintage rock sound that I feel clashes with the rest of the atmosphere.

The mood of this review is far too negative because this is still a good album. It's just that it seems like it could have been so much more. Waters made much better selections for Amused To Death. If you liked what Pink Floyd did on The Wall, don't mind Roger's half singing-half whispering with sparse instrumentation trick, and like a bit of a country flavor. This should be a fine addition to your collection.