RATTLE THAT LOCK

Putting this album on one is immediately struck by a beautiful instrumental tune (titled "5am") with a great subdued Gilmour solo. However, just as Gilmour's solo is about to take off and you are getting into it, it fades out. This pretty well sums up the feel of disappointment one gets from this album. There are some great musical sections, but their potential is often squandered. In general, the best tracks on this album are front-loaded, and the quality generally tends declines with each track. The title track, "Rattle that Lock", is the second song and this time is a full-length normal song, with some great playing by Gilmour, and some decent lyrics and (slightly higher-pitched) singing. Together, these two tracks are the highlight. The third track, "Faces of Stone" is also pretty good, but not quite at the level of "Rattle". "A Boat Likes Waiting", the fourth track, is also decent, very pleasant and slow with nice lyrics and vocal harmonies, but not quite as good as "Faces". And so on. The songs in the second half of the album are, for the most part, weaker - too weak to justify multiple listens, for various reasons. The instrumental "Beauty" is good, but similar to the opener "5am" in that it ends before the guitar solo gets blistering. "In any Tongue" reminds a bit too much of "High Hopes". "The Girl in the Yellow Dress" is a nice lounge-jazz tune, but sounds a bit forced. "Today" is the weakest track on the album. The closing tune, "And Then..." is an instrumental led by the guitar, which of course holds tons of promise, but turns out to be one of Gilmour's most easy-listening performances, with very little excitement, and itself just fades out. Among the frustrations here is that most of the songs fade out just when the guitar solo is getting going. By the time you get to the end of the album, you have this feeling of disappointment, having spent time waiting for the potential that we all know Gilmour has, to emerge full-blown. Really, all Gilmour needs to do is solo. But he needs to solo for more than 30 seconds, and he needs to put his heart into it. If his solo albums were to build up to a long blistering guitar solo at the end of each album, listeners would be happy and the effort it takes to sit through the weaker tracks would seem worth it. The album About Face at least had some longer solos and an excellent closing track. Here on Rattle, by putting the weakest tracks at the end, the experience merely reinforces the disappointment felt at the squandering of talent. Truth be told, the first five tracks here are all decent songs (in fact, I actually quite like the fifth song "Dancing Right in Front of Me" - for me the second-best song on the album), and if it were anyone but Gilmour I would probably give this album around 6 out of 10. However, given this is Gilmour, but with short guitar solos and premature fade outs, I can't rate this album more than 5.4 out of 10, which is 0.1 below that needed for a three-star rating. Hence, 2 PA stars.

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