Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Pink Floyd
Label: EMI Records
Released: 1987
Length: 51:14
Rating: 4.5/5
By the mid-eighties, Pink Floyd were a busted band that only really existed on paper. After the concept album “The Final Cut” (1983), the personal testament of bassist, singer and lyricist Roger Waters, which sounded more like his solo record than a joint effort from the legendary band, everyone turned to solo projects. For Waters, determined to make it as a successful solo artist with “The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking” (1985), the Pink Floyd story was over, so he never expected either of the other two to dare poke the hornets’ nest without him.
On the other side stood guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, both fed up to the back teeth with Waters’ dictatorship, which had been going on since the album “Animals” (1977). The two, by then solidly middle-aged, decided while recording Gilmour’s third solo album to revive the legendary band’s name and keep it alive, which ultimately led to Waters’ fury and a court battle over the right to use the name Pink Floyd. The whole affair came with a huge dose of media circus and noise, and plenty of dirty laundry aired in public. Gilmour and Waters hadn’t spoken to each other in the studio since the late seventies, and this only deepened their mutual hatred and led to the final split, which has only slowly begun to thaw in recent years, to the point where the former sworn enemies talk to each other again and even join forces on stage every now and then.
Quite a few fans were convinced that Pink Floyd without Waters, who besides playing bass was the key lyricist, the mastermind, and one of the two lead vocalists, were completely irrelevant. His former bandmates swore to prove otherwise. First they decided to right a great wrong done to original keyboardist Richard Wright, who had been kicked out of the band in 1979 at Waters’ insistence, and invited him to work on the album. Wright gladly took them up on the offer, though he decided not to join the project as a full member just yet, so Pink Floyd remained a duo.
The most valuable and impressive collaborator on the album was without a doubt bass guitar maestro Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel), who contributed a string of rhythmic moves on individual tracks that Waters can only dream about. Important reinforcements as guest players were also producer and keyboardist Bob Ezrin, keyboardist Jon Carin, drummer Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge) and saxophonist John Helliwell (Supertramp), whose skills and experience went a long way toward the incredibly rich sound of the whole album.
The project actually started out as Gilmour’s third solo album, and only midway through the creative process did he decide it would be better to put it out under the Pink Floyd name. That’s also one of the main arguments of the post-Waters-era Pink Floyd naysayers, that the band sounded too much like Gilmour’s solo outfit, which is of course exactly the same argument made by the people who were frustrated with Roger’s dictatorship. The fact remains that Pink Floyd were at their strongest when all four had their hearts in it and every member had equal standing, something they themselves realized many years later, when it was already too late and Wright was no longer among the living.
It has to be said that among the few flaws of “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” are the lyrics, which miss Waters’ cynical-intellectual social-critical bite and don’t reach the depth you’d expect, even though Roger’s constant attacks on society’s ills, mixed with gloom and the digging up of old personal demons, were pretty much exhausted by the mid-eighties. That’s exactly why Gilmour’s melancholic-romantic, slightly naive and far more optimistic outlook on the world, which you can pick up in most of the lyrics, came as a welcome breath of fresh air and in that respect added to the album’s distinctiveness and uniqueness.
The opening instrumental “Signs Of Life” is soaked in a mysterious, tense and slightly dark atmosphere, created by oar strokes through water and Mason’s electronically processed voice, which sounds like ‘little green men’ talk. “Learning to Fly”, the first single from the album, which got an unforgettable video about a Native American who turns into an eagle at the end, quickly established itself as a first-rate Pink Floyd classic and helped the duo successfully present the band’s new face as well as win over plenty of new fans. The hypnotic chorus is backed by female vocal harmonies that bring back memories of the band’s best days. The lyrics are steeped in Gilmour’s fascination with flying, which comes from his being an amateur pilot, and are also a neat metaphor for a major life change. In David’s case, that was his new, unexpected role as the band’s leader. Unlike most other old-school progressive rock bands, which in the eighties liked to overdo the second generation of synthesizers, Pink Floyd kept the retro symphonic keyboard sound, so most of the songs on the album have phenomenally withstood the test of time and still sound fresh and modern.
Still, the album isn’t without minor ups and downs in quality, which goes especially for the Cold War-paranoid “The Dogs of War”, soaked in bluesy rock guitar finesse and also released as a single, where Gilmour’s thunderous snarling doesn’t leave the most convincing emotional mark, and for both parts of “A New Machine”, which play practically no real role in building dramatic atmosphere or tying the songs together. Gilmour’s inconsolable snarling through a vocoder sounds like the whining of someone who just crawled out of bed after a sleepless night. Good enough for a Gilmour solo record, but not by the usual Pink Floyd standards.
All the remaining songs on “A Momentary Lapse Of Reason”, though, are pure balm for prog rock gourmands. The phenomenal “One Slip”, the third single from the album, enchants in an instant with its nostalgic and positivist atmosphere, conjuring up uncharted earthly expanses through the furrowed bass line of the indestructible Tony Levin, whose Chapman Stick adds an unsuspected rhythmic dimension to this evergreen composition. Gilmour’s mighty singing is loaded with a special emotional essence that blends superbly with the melodic guitar passages, while smooth-running synth lines underline the melancholic depth of this deeply romantic song the whole way through.
The power ballad “On the Turning Away”, the fourth single from the album, whose lyrics are about coping with life in hard times of depression and crisis (which makes it especially timely), is brimming with the kind of optimism and mystical atmosphere that had been missing from Pink Floyd since the mid-seventies. In that respect it’s quite akin to the unforgettable wake-up-call classic “Wish You Were Here”. The next composition, made up of its first part “Yet Another Movie” and its second, instrumental part “Round and Around”, is another excellent creation with multidimensional depth and a mighty, mystical atmosphere. Besides Wright’s symphonic curtains of synths, what impresses most is Gilmour’s trademark ‘weeping’ slide guitar leads. The next instrumental, “Terminal Frost”, is soaked in a mysterious atmosphere that conjures up icy plains and snow-capped peaks. Idyllic mood pictures like these are the product of the harmonious interplay of Gilmour’s guitar slides, Helliwell’s saxophone solo passages and Carin’s symphonic synth textures. Interestingly, Mason was forced to use a drum machine here, since after three years of sitting on the sidelines as Pink Floyd’s drummer he was a bit rusty, and he could afford to.
The album hits its peak with the closing monumental epic “Sorrow”, which in every respect ranks among the most magnificent achievements in the band’s story and also contains one of the best solos of Gilmour’s career. He has admitted more than once that writing lyrics was never among his main strengths, but he singled out “Sorrow” as a rare exception he’s proud of. You really have to agree that it’s the best lyric on the album, even though the opening verses are inspired by the literary classic The Grapes of Wrath. Gilmour’s singing is at the best possible level here, especially when it reaches that emotional breadth and melancholic depth which, in harmony with his weeping guitar solo finesse, conjures up an incredible atmosphere that only Pink Floyd were capable of creating. This is the masterful composition with which the duo finally tell all the doubting Thomases to go to hell, the ones who thought that without Waters the two would stumble badly on the first try, screw it up and never get back up.
“A Momentary Lapse of Reason” was a very welcome breath of fresh air after two straight rounds of Waters’ dark confessionals, and it blew away the depressive gloom that had started to choke this legendary band. Even though the album isn’t a classic concept masterpiece of the kind fans were used to in the past, Gilmour and Mason hit the nail on the head and made one of the most interesting and, at the same time, most overlooked records in the band’s history. Following Gilmour’s creative lead, Pink Floyd convincingly kept pace with the production and synthesizer technology of the time and squeezed it for everything it was worth. They also knew how to win over the new ‘MTV’ generation of fans, which was crucial for the band’s future. Despite Waters’ grumbling and sneering at this album, it rightly got a warmer reception and more enthusiasm from fans and critics of the day than “The Final Cut” did, so Gilmour and Mason came out of this battle of egos as the winners and, full of fresh energy, carried the Pink Floyd story on for a few more years.
Lineup
David Gilmour – vocals, guitar, keyboards, sequencer
Nick Mason – drums, percussion, drum machine, sound effects
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Richard Wright – keyboards, backing vocals
Bob Ezrin – keyboards, percussion, sequencer
Tony Levin – bass guitar, Chapman Stick
Jim Keltner – drums, percussion
Steve Forman – percussion
Jon Carin – keyboards
Tom Scott – alto saxophone, soprano saxophone
Scott Page – tenor saxophone
Carmine Appice – drums
Patrick Leonard – synthesizer
Bill Payne – Hammond organ
Michael Landau – guitar
John Helliwell – saxophone
Darlene Koldenhaven – backing vocals
Carmen Twillie – backing vocals
Phyllis St. James – backing vocals
Donnie Gerrard – backing vocals
Production
Bob Ezrin and David Gilmour
Track List
1. Signs Of Life
2. Learning To Fly
3. The Dogs Of War
4. One Slip
5. On The Turning Away
6. Yet Another Movie/Round And Around
7. A New Machine (Part 1)
8. Terminal Frost
9. A New Machine (Part 2)
10. Sorrow
