A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON

The absence of Waters does make for a stark change from The Wall and The Final Cut. For one thing, we now actually get fully instrumental tracks (the last time that happened was on DSOTM), in the forms of Signs of Life and Terminal Frost. And they happen to be a couple of mighty fine tunes.

There are numerous other highlights across the album, from the likes of Learning To Fly, On the Turning Away and Sorrow. Most other tracks are good-quality, solid numbers. Only The Dogs of War and A New Machine Parts 1 and 2 fail to meet my good listen criteria: The Dogs of War is a cringeworthy poke at Waters' anti-war songs, which exudes a very uncomfortable atmosphere and a frankly ugly saxophone solo. A New Machine parts 1 and 2 are short and rather pointless, with little musical value to them (simply Gilmour shouting/screaming slightly distorted pointless phrases such as I have always looked out from behind these eyes - well duh!). The album would have lost nothing without them, apart from a less impressive-looking tracklisting.

All that said, the album is overall very solid and largely consistent. The reason I'm giving it three stars rather than four is because of the lack of variety. Most songs follow the intro-singing-instrumental-singing-instrumental format and there is little variation in Gilmour's singing. Most of the individual songs are well-crafted pieces and would stand well by themselves, but bunching them all up on one album I would say hinders their enjoyability.

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