ON AN ISLAND

So after lot's and lot's of years David Gilmour brings us another solo record and a good one. I'm a huge Pink Floyd fan but I never found myself into Gilmour's solo work. To me, Roger Waters stands as the creative force behind Floyd and Gilmour as their vocalist and mostly guitarist. Gilmour's solo records just didn't grab me, not even the solos on it. But now turning 60 he made his 3rd one and to be quite honest I didn't expect anything good at all but I downloaded and listened to it anyway. The intro was nice but when the actual song started I was immediately hooked. The title song "on a island" with some elite background singers (David Crosby, Graham Nash) and a incredible guitar solo stands as the best song by Floyd or a member since Comfortably Numb.

The rest of the album didn't really took me by surprise as that song at first, but after a few months I saw this records at a used store (so soon?) and I bought it for 5 Euros. I soon discovered the beauty in the record. The tracks are slow and extremely mellow and I'm a more of a metal head than a mellow head so it usually doesn't work on me but somehow these tracks worked. The way David uses his guitar is so much better than anything he did after the Wall. There is some real emotion in it again and some power. He has also learned to play the sax and I've got to say that it makes a nice addition to the album.

Every track has something unique in it, although the album does keep the same pace most of the time. David makes 2 attempts at some speed. The first being Take a Breath which isn't a horrible song by any means but the Chorus is just annoying, the second one is "Smile" which is one of the highlights but he is at his best with the mellow stuff. This album is recommended for people liking Pink Floyd and stuff like Floyd but I wouldn't recommend it to lot's of other people. It's good, but not very essential.

Highlights:

On a island This heaven Smile

Lowlight:

Take a Breath

Written for www.musicmademe.com