I gave it one listen through yesterday but I’ve been listening to this since 8 o’clock this morning on repeat and I must say – oh happy days. This is beautiful, I mean truly beautiful.
I’d earlier posted my thoughts saying how I was a tiny bit disappointed because I hoped rather than expected more. I’ve no fucking clue what I was on about to be blunt and having posted it I realised I hadn’t properly listened to it yet to give an opinion. So I deleted it and I was right to.
Much like the cover artwork, this is like a journey in your own little boat, floating on clouds through a sonic gallery of Pink Floyd memories. Every now and then you will hear echo’s of something familiar, from different periods in Floyd past – sometimes more than one reference in one song.
We begin with a touching recording of Wright talking about the band at the beginning of Things Left Unsaid – “we certainly [have] an unspoken understanding.....er, and a lot of things unsaid as well”. And then Gilmour “ah well we shout and argue and fight and er....work it all out” then a voice I can’t make out saying “the sum is greater than its parts” (Mason possibly?) and we’re off, big sweeping, gentle synths and acoustic guitar weave in and out as they merge seamlessly into It’s What We Do, the sounds here amongst others send you back to Wish You Were Here.
From the ending of Sum into Skins which takes you to Pompeii, to Anisina which has you believing Us and Them has arrived, only to caress you in a new direction and into a new light. Allons-y (1) doffs its cap to Run Like Hell as it passes on down the road into Autumn 68 – a beautiful interlude of church organ playing by Wright before returning to Allons-y (2).
Talkin Hawkin reintroduces the unmistakable and mesmerising sound of Stephen Hawkins and this gives way to the haunting Calling; Wrights keyboards and arrangement providing the perfect direction for the catchy acoustic riff in which follows in Eyes to Pearls (which, strangely, I appear to have two of, back to back, on my CD? Same track just duplicated?)
The penultimate track - Surfacing – is probably the most identifiable of the time it was written, sounding like it could have easily made it onto Division Bell. Which leaves you with the only track on the album that has vocals on it and that is Louder than Words which I believe was written by Gilmour’s wife and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it became a Floyd favourite for many and is growing on me massively all the time, just like the whole album.
I think to sum up, this has been carefully and cleverly thought out and put together. It feels fresh to me yet completely familiar in a way I’ve never experienced before. It’s an amazing achievement actually, what they have done here. I can imagine some people to be a little disappointed at first – as I was initially, my knee jerk self after one listen not able to appreciate what I was listening to – but it is a true work of brilliance. To some it may feel as though Floyd have just taken all that they have done and given it to some random producer/mixer to do a sort of “Essence of Floyd” album to bring some extra coin in. Trust me, it’s so far, light years in fact, away from that as you could possibly imagine.
I've barely scratched the surface, this has so much more to give and already I'm hearing new things that I havent mentioned like The Lost Art of Conversation, Wright's piano is gorgeous.
Go and get this – you will not regret it!
