Momentary Lapse Of Reason, A - Pink Floyd > Reviews > Yes Indeed It Was

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Lacking inspiration
Lyrics	Standard
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Weak
Value for Money

Advantages:	The odd good track and guitar
Disadvantages:	Average, very average .  .  not very Pink Floyd

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

So Roger Waters has gone, Pink Floyd is now just about David Gilmour, with Rick Wright sacked and Nick Mason only there in a token gesture type of way. Now I like David Gilmour don't get me wrong, but I’m sorry to have to say I really am not keen on this effective David Gilmour solo album. I mean it’s not awful, it’s still a reasonably good album, it’s just it really doesn’t come up to the standards you come to expect after hearing all the other Pink Floyd albums.

Roger Waters had become the writer in Pink Floyd, it was him driving them more than anyone else, maybe not necessarily musically, but certainly in artistic terms. The concepts and ideas and words were largely his. This left the David Gilmour Pink Floyd with a problem… who writes the songs? Naturally Gilmour had to take on the job, but he didn’t feel able to do it alone so drafted some other people in.

The credits list says it all really, David Gilmour and Nick Mason are at the top in big but small letters, then 16 names appear underneath in smaller small letters! Rick Wright is at the top, then Bob Ezrin, Tony Levin is next for Bass with Roger Waters departed. Then it all goes a little odd, Jim Keltner is on Drums… but wait a minute didn’t Nick Mason already do that? Steve Forman, Percussion… couldn’t Nick Mason have done that, or perhaps the other drummer? Jon Carin, Keyboards… but Bob Ezrin has done that already, and why couldn’t Rick Wright do it anyway? Saxophone players are acceptable. Oh my! Carmine Appice played.. guess what on this album! DRUMS! Pat Leonard, Synthesisers because naturally Gilmour, Mason, Wright and Ezrin had no experience of those before did they!!! Bill Payne, Hammond Organ… yes the same one Rick Wright is down for! Michael Landau, Guitar, because after all David Gilmour was too busy writing songs by committee!

And that’s the point I’m getting at, this album smacks of an Album made by committee with David Gilmour the chairman. It does not smack of a ‘PINK FLOYD’ album!

Track Listing:
1 : Signs of Life
2 : Learning to Fly
3 : The Dogs of War
4 : One Slip
5 : On the Turning Away
6 : a) Yet Another Movie b)Round and Around
7 : A New Machine Part 1
8 : Terminal Frost
9 : A New Machine Part 2
10 : Sorrow

Signs of Life isn’t particularity impressing as the opening instrumental, it lacks… well anything!

Learning to fly is a reasonably good song and it sounds okay, it’s not up to what had ever gone before it but there you go! ‘The Dogs of War’ I’ve seen slated before, but I have to confess it’s probably my favourite track on the album. It actually says something and it has a steady tune that can get stuck in your head, although it isn’t very musical for the first two thirds, but it kicks in eventually with some nice Gilmour guitar!

I still cringe when I hear the words to ‘One Slip’ it’s so embarrassing! "One Slip, and down the hole we fall, it seems to take no time at all, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason." It’s talking about sex by the way! Down the hole we fall! Come on David that’s just awful! From Roger Waters’ divinely constructed songs that shaped 70s Floyd we come to this! It’s so bad it makes me start looking back at songs that Gilmour held joint credits for with Roger and makes me just wonder if perhaps it was indeed Roger who was writing them with minimal Gilmour input. And this is a major issue in Floyd, after all the break up was supposedly partly caused by the whole credits issue. And as thus this one song makes me seriously start to think that perhaps Roger was more in the right than a lot give him credit for!

‘On The Turning Away’ is another song I quite like on the album, again it says something and doesn’t involve lyrics about one slip and down the hole we fall! No in fact this song is my favourite, it could belong on a Pink Floyd album, I love it! Oh and it even has some proper Guitar work in it. And it’s this song that I think you will hear is the kind of influence on the later ‘Division Bell’ album sound. "Yet Another Movie" is a song I’m less keen on, I confess I’m not entirely sure what it is saying, mainly because I lose interest in it half way through! "Round and Around" is another unimpressive instrumental.

‘A New Machine’ parts 1 and 2 I’m sad to say in my opinion are the sorriest excuses of Pink Floyd album tracks ever made! I’m really not keen at all. No instruments, just David I presume speaking through a ‘voice-mucker-upper’ machine! I’m not going to bother commenting on the words because I’m sure I’m not the only one who can understand a bloody word said! They’re in the rather average booklet that comes with the CD!! In-between is yet another instrumental ‘Terminal Frost’ still no cigar I’m afraid David!

"Sorrow" is the last song on the album and it’s actually not too bad even if David did write it all alone! It’s a good way to finish an otherwise average album.

‘A Momentary Lapse Of Reason’ I believe is very aptly named, it was just that! And had Roger Waters not considered Pink Floyd to be finished you wonder whether Gilmour would ever have pushed this album forward. But it sold like hotcakes, and they got a massive grossing tour out of it. That is something often thrown at Roger, the journalists say "HA so you thought Pink Floyd was finished, you left and then they went and made millions!" but if Roger is the artist he appears to be I’m sure he won’t mind to have missed out on the millions. It was a sell out, it was Pink Floyd exploiting a brand name to make money.

To be fair though perhaps it’s sales and the tour indicate that it wasn’t such a bad album, it was just a more mainstream album. One more directed at the market. Personally I’m not into Pink Floyd for mainstream music, I’m into them for that special Pink Floyd experience. Where you put on the album loud with headphone on, close your eyes and leave planet earth back in the distance. This album doesn’t have a special mystique and it doesn’t say anything in particular.

One thing I ask you to bare in mind though is when I’m negative about this album it’s in comparison to other Pink Floyd albums, it’s still generally speaking a good album. Naturally all Floyd fans need it in their collection, you can’t have gaps, and perhaps it’s mainstream appeal makes it a good place for none Floyd fans to get into Floyd. And the good news is it only gets better after you’ve bought this album!