THE FINAL CUT

The most miserable of all Floyd's albums. 'The Wall' sounds like a picnic by the seaside with ice-cream and wafers compared to this. Here, it's pretty much Roger Waters by himself at the helm, happily guiding the Pink ship kamikaze style into to the heart of the sun... with no possible point of return.

The good news is that the lyrics are the best he ever put down on paper. In particular 'When the Tigers Broke Free'. That's Tiger Panzers - not the stripey animals.

It's heavy going throughout, but sounds straight from the heart and honest. There's not so much Dave Gilmour on this recording, as he was in a huff and had just about had enough of Roger by this point. Rick Wright was already sacked and Nick Mason does what Nick Mason always did - played solid but unspectacular drums. 'The Final Cut' was clearly the sound of a band imploding.

Why the 5 stars then?

It's the intensity of the lyrics. Overseas listeners won't get the malignant discomfort felt by citizens of the UK towards Margaret Thatcher in the 80's. 'The Final Cut' is a very British orientated recording. The catastrophic decline of shipbuilding, Coal mine closures, greed is good, smash the poor and... in particular, the Falklands fiasco in 1982.

'Not Now John' sums up the UK very well in the early 80's - replete with continual expletives which must have had DJ's praying that they'd put on the listener friendly 7" version for radio exposure. This is the only uplifting part of the record which is guaranteed to have Floyd fans singing at the tops of their voices.

There's also lots of sound effects within, which I'm always a big sucker for, particularly the pub scene in 'Paranoid Eyes'. which has lots of clinking beer mugs and mumbling patrons.

'The Final Cut' is a beautiful, poetic album, lyric heavy and not a happy listen at all. Where it gains most points is in the fact that this Floyd album actually conveys a meaning and a message that many people in Britain were in sympathy with at that time.