Pink Floyd

A Momentary Lapse Of Reason

One of Floyd's Finest

Review Score:

(10/10)
(...) A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON was the first Floyd album after MEDDLE that I did NOT buy. When it was released, I had been deeply immersed in classical music, mostly the late Romantics, for about five years. I had been very disappointed with THE FINAL CUT, and I had thought that I had just outgrown "art" rock for real art.

God do I regret that decision! It was more than a decade, as middle age nostalgia was setting in, before I started listening to Pink Floyd again and gave this CD a chance. I played it every day for months, then shelved it, then brought it out for more months of daily play.

In short: I love this CD.

First, I love its oft-maligned "sound": rich, layered, grand, symphonic, but always in very good taste.

Second, I love the warmth and subtlety of David Gilmour's voice, always the the voice of Pink Floyd for me. In no other recording does he use it so expressively.

Third, and most importantly, there are wonderful songs here: "Signs of Life" is a meditative instrumental opening. "Learning to Fly" is sublime in its combination of loping, heavy, earthbound music and with soaring voices and a wonderful melody in the chorus; it did not make much of an initial impression, but on the second listening I was hooked; "The Dogs of War" is surging, shattering blues, with a coiled rattlesnake tenseness, biting lyrics, and magnificent guitar and sax solos. It is the "Money" of MOMENTARY LAPSE. "One Slip" is a richly layered uptempo song with a melody that slowly insinuates itself until one is hooked. "On the Turning Away" is my very favorite. The melody is instantly catchy, instantly moving, and very, very English. Even though I do not share the sentiments of the lyrics, I cannot resist their beauty. And the guitar solo is one of Gilmour's greatest ever, up there with his greatest on "Comfortably Numb." "Yet Another Movie"/"Round and Around" is another mesmerizing track with evocative, melancholy lyrics and searing guitar. This is night music, music with an interstellar spaciousness. "A New Machine" parts 1 and 2 is weak, but mercifully brief, framing "Terminal Frost," which is one of Pink Floyd's very best instumental tracks: incredibly tight, incredibly slick, with a beautiful melody that is alternately soaring and wistful. The final track, "Sorrow," is a truly grand finale, a song about regretting lost youth and lost innocence, both of the individual facing death and of civilization cut off from nature, paved over, fenced in, and drowning in its own pollution--moral, cultural, and industrial.

This is grownup music, and I am glad that I finally grew into it.

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