THE FINAL CUT

Originally the third disc of The Wall, Floyd's record company would not let them put out a triple album. So Waters & Co. spruced it up a bit, added the first "3-D" sounds ever recorded (if you've listened to it on headphones, you know what I'm talking about), and released it as a single album. And although it is best listened to as if it were in fact the third disc of The Wall, I believe it stands on its own as an exceptional album. Your Possible Pasts, One of the Few, Paranoid Eyes, The Fletcher Memorial Home, The Final Cut and Not Now John are as good as any of Floyd's previous "songs." I find myself listening to this one even more than The Wall, and indeed more than most Floyd albums except WYWH and Animals.

Roger's Final Straw??

Generally unfairly maligned by a lot of classic-era Floyd fans, TFC is often pointed as the object where Waters' power trip grew out of proportion leading to a final coup or putsch. Those un-fans regard (understandably) TFC a bit as a Waters solo album, since the remaining g two Floyd members had minimal input and not that much more executive tasks on it, Mason even losing his stool for the final track (the final cut for fans?? ;o))). The least we can say is that Water's concept is not quite as clear as it was with the Wall or Animals, the sober artwork not giving anymore hints than the album's title.

Musically, if you like The Wall, you'll find that TFC is down the same alley, but lacks the few landmarks that its predecessor had. In general Roger is less inspired than the The Wall, and it's regrettable that he chose to ignore Gilmour's input that might have this album another success, rather than being unnoticed. Another thing that does not serve the album is the terribly depressive mood and caustic humour of the lyrics (more or less an afterthought of The Wall's history) and catastrophic Nuke blast ending (Two Suns In The Sunset) that tend to suffocate the music to the point that many fans can't really remember or single out a single track of the album. Just like The Wall, the huge majority of TCF's vocals are Roger's, and his distinctive style and almost recitative delivery are miles away from Gilmour's more familiar voice. Strangely enough, the synths have disappeared and the piano (Nick Kamen) and the organ returns (Andy Bown ? brother of Alan Bown) and the sax is now played by Ravenscroft instead of Parry, while Roger's now holding the acoustic guitars (a bit normal if you're the songwriter, but reducing Gilmour's vital space furthermore. Water's detractors are usually Gilmour fans, but I'd urge them to listen to David's About Face with Not Now John in mind and let them draw their conclusion, the same could be applicable to Lapse Of Reason.

One of the problems is that Waters doesn't give us much explanation to his unclear (for me anyway) concept story and that too many moments of the album seem to be a rewritibng of The Wall, even if it is related to war in all its states: from his father's (Fletcher's Memorial Home) sacrificed life in WW2 to Roger's understandable hatred of Maggie and unilateral invasion (Bermuda, Afghanistan, Falklands, Lebanon) and the Cold Nuclear War still happening, all of these should normally endear us to sympathise Roger's plights and state of mind. On a different angle, Gilmour's musical contribution are mostly limited to some brilliant guitar interventions and solos (notably the title track, which is clearly of Wall-ian inspiration), while Mason's drumming is just what Roger ordered, as Nick was more interested at the driver's seat (racing) than the drum stool.

I doubt that those having lived the album's release in the then-context - the recession, Ronald Reagan's Star Wars program, USSR's quick succession of Brezhnev, Andropov and Tchernenko, Maggie's fight against the miner's un ion , the Malvinas/Falklands war and more, plus given that Floyd's MTV clip had nuclear explosion - I doubt they will ever be able to look at this album from a different angle and Water's sordid fixations and thoughts and future paranoid actions against his future former mates will never help either. But even those that missed the context of the album's release cannot escape it, unless discovering this album blindly, then they could compare it favourably with most of the 80's prog albums (RIO excluded). In the meantime, this is one of Floyd more difficult album and not my fave by a long shot?. But I think it's a better than anything Gilmour and the Waters-less Floyd will do in the 80's. .

Not a perfect Floyd album by any means, more of a Waters solo project (as was, arguably, The Wall); however, as an album of sheer desolation & isolation, this album is hard to beat - just keep any sharp objects away when you're listening or at least have the Prozac handy; this album is so depressing, it's occasionally (unintentionally) funny.

The "Final Cut" is the last album where both Roger Waters and David Gilmour work together. Rick Wright has already left: as rare keyboards, only piano, Hammond organ and harmonium are present. Anyway, the omnipresent orchestral arrangements provided by the National Philharmonic Orchestra are more than compensatory. Probably David Gilmour plays his best guitar solos here, quite comparable to the perfect ones on the "A momentary lapse of reason" album: the guitar solos sound is really loud, present and very sustained. Gilmour does not play very much rhythmic guitars here. Like "The Wall", the tracks have full of special & subtle sounds, and they really contribute to enhance the artistic value of this record: steps, passing cars, meowing cat, ticking clock, whispers, conversations, laughs, blowing wind, passing jet fighter, explosion and barking dog among others: all those effects need a careful listen and of course an excellent sound system to be fully appreciated; actually this album has the "Holophonics" technology, a 3-D sound processing, and not the "Qsound" technology, which is the case for his solo album "Amused to death". Roger Waters monopolizes the VERY emotional lead vocals, being half narrator, half singer. The overall rhythm is VERY slow, so that this record may sound boring for many: probably a relax mental predisposition must occur during such a listen. Some elements, like the lyrics, evoke some war commemoration, which naturally emanates from the overall mood when the orchestra is playing. There are some very good sax parts on a couples of tracks. The famous Waters' female backing vocals make their appearance, especially on "Not now john".

This record mainly has the same orientation as Waters' solo album "Pros & cons of hitchhiking", plus the delightful orchestral arrangements, and minus the exceptional Eric Clapton's bluesy guitars.

Rating: 4.5 stars

In a perfect world, "The Wall", "The Final Cut", and Waters' "Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" should be mixed together, shaken well, and distilled to make one last decent album by PINK FLOYD and one interesting Waters solo album. At one point in my teenage life "The Wall" hadn't yet worn out its welcome and I was hungry for more, which was good because that's mainly what "The Final Cut" and "Pros and Cons" delivered: more of the same. More cultural criticism from the perspective of an isolated, world-weary rocker, more introspective musings steeped in neurosis, more WWII imagery and gospel-tinged rock drama. Richard Wright is sorely missed on this album, and Gilmour's efforts are even more limited than on "The Wall", but there are moments of beauty and despair that almost redeem it- the title track, for instance, is perhaps as close as Waters ever came to making an honest expression of emotion. The clarity and balance of instruments is better here than on "The Wall", with a more lush texture and more varied palette of tones, and there are no embarrasing rock-opera moments either. It beats any subsequent (i.e., non- Waters) release by the band, but it still takes last place compared to all previous PINK FLOYD albums. I would even rather listen to "Several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict" for 43 minutes...and that's saying something.

I certainly have waited enough to review this album, and the time to do my part has come. I waited because I wanted to put the very exact words to describe such piece of work. Many times all along my already posted reviews I have constantly used the words "emotive", "beautiful", "masterpiece" or even "exquisite work", but this very album overshadows those adjectives by all means. It isn't only the album were Roger WATERS bares his soul for the very first time before his true deep feelings he had held in for his father's memory; it isn't only the album were Michael KAMEN (conductor of the National Philharmonic Orchestra), took over the keyboards to replace Richard WRIGHT for the very first time; and it isn't the last PINK FLOYD album James GUTHRIE produced and engineered. It is a masterfully crafted, polished gem that speaks for itself in every single tune, evoking dark, profound passages of fear, sorrow and pain. This requiem for the post war dream by Roger WATERS applies the accurate dosage of silent screams inside your head, gives away the precise amount of unspoken words to your mouth, brings out the uncontainable times you have awaken inside a dream and just to set you in front of yourself to face your inner "you", to confront the battle from within throughout WATERS eyes and ears.

From "The Post War Dream" to "Two Suns in the Sunset", this conceptual album drives the way through innumerable disturbing guitar passages and dry moments on the drums. GILMOUR and MASON compensate the lack of cohesion with WRIGHT on keyboards in this album by committing themselves to fit perfectly into the symphonic arrangements by KAMEN and into the WATERS obvious composing demands. Featuring songs like "Paranoid Eyes", "Southampton Dock" and "Not Now John", experience several moods and emotions, but the particular thing in between them, is that they all share the "Final Cut" alignments, they all contain a bit of the memories and experiences of WATERS, but most important, the band knew how to put together this farewell album in order to be believable and convincing.

I think of this album as the end of an era for the band, and as the beginning of a brand new one for some of the members apart from the PINK FLOYD experience. WATERS has already launched 5 albums on his own, WRIGHT commenced to do so back in the 80's when he released "Wet Dream" and GILMOUR came up with "About Face" (Don't want to bring up MASON and BARRET's works because that is a whole different story to be told in some other review). The remains of "The Final Cut" are still burning in some other recordings by the band with or without WATERS ("A Momentary Lapse of Reason" or "The Division Bell") and even so in the last live album by Roger, "In the Flesh".

This album is for many reasons, the best PINK FLOYD album to me. Its mysticism and sadness won my heart and my mind from the get go. I know many prog rockers out there think of it as incomplete, unconvincing and messy, but it maybe just be that in order to comprehend the true story surrounding this album, we might as well need to have wider opened ears and eyes and let ourselves drive us through it with no resistance at all. This is the PINK FLOYD album, this is the beginning and the end.

The Final Cut loses Richard Wright and as the albums after this have proved, pink floyd are no good unless they are a full unit. This album is barely a pink floyd album but morely a Roger Waters solo album. There are no vocal contribuitons from gilmour and him and nick barely get a look in here. It is all Roger till about track 8 when you finally start to release that dave and nick are on this album.

Some say that this was meant to be the third disc too the wall but i'm bloody glad it wasn't. The Story would have gone completely...off the wall. Imagine after they tear down the wall and convict pink in the trial, the story then carried on to a rant about the war. It just wouldn't fit and would have dragged the wall down so much. Also the film would have had an extra hour tagged onto it of complete nonsense.

The lyrics here are very meaningful but for a pink floyd album it was exectuted terribly. It is interesting to see a more symphonic approach with the inclusion of Michael Kamen but this is a shoddy follow up to the wall. Rogers singing has become much poorer and every bit of music here is too far under par to compete with any of the 60s and 70s album. It follows a similar concept to the wall but it feels like an embaressment to go from the wall to this! Each track sounds vaguely similar and there aren't many progressions and its patchy in so many areas. It is very upsetting and should not have been a Pink Floyd album but a Roger Waters album. He has tried hard but let down the band here.

There are only 3 good inputs by david gilmour on this album in the solos to "the fletcher memorial home", "the final cut" and "Not Now John" but these efforts are barely up to his usual standards. There is a nice piano intro to "The Gunner's Dream" but the fact that it is not played by richard wright is upsetting. I guess if Roger had stayed on we would have seen another album like this which was even worse.

Avoid this like the plague.

For the life of me I cannot understand all the negative hype about The Final Cut. It is a chilling beautiful ( as Roger Water's puts it) requiem for the post war dream. The only negative thing about it is that Rick Wright is sadly not on it. The album has excellent production as well and as another reviewer states, listen to this on good headphones and you will understand.Sure it has Water's angst, so what, it is this kind of inspiration that makes great albums.Just listen to ' Your possible pasts'' The Gunner's dream';' The flethcher memorial home' and the superlative sad ' The Final cut'. Gilmour's guitar is excellent as usual and Michael Kamen's contribution on keyboards is a more than able substitute to Rick Wrights.I think the Final Cut was a ftting end to Water's time with the Floyd and he left on a definite high.

Waters of change

The "final cut" for Roger Waters as a member of Pink Floyd maybe, but reports of the demise of the band were somewhat premature. It is easy to see when listening to this album why something had to give. Waters dominates the proceedings throughout, to the extent that its virtually a solo album by him. He writes every track, and takes on lead vocal duties.

With Rick Wright sacked by Waters, Gilmour and Mason were present pretty much in name only. Five other musicians were therefore brought in by Waters, plus the National Philharmonic Orchestra.

"The final cut" is very obviously a follow up to "The Wall", in fact it could well have formed a third LP for that album. The music follows a strict pattern throughout, with alternating slow, soft and loud passages, only "Not now John", an unsuccessful single, breaking the mould slightly. Gilmour gets to throw in the occasional guitar solo, such as on "The Fletcher memorial home" and the title track, but in all the album seems like one tediously long track.

The melodies are generally strong and pleasant, belying at times the overtly political message the album seeks to impart. On this album, it seems as if getting that message across is more important to Waters than creating an entertaining and diverse album.

Waters complained later that the Pink Floyd name should not have been put on the albums they made after his departure, but here we have what amounts to a Waters solo album which by the same logic should not bear the band name.

Roger Waters criticized dictators and he became one of them in Pink Floyd. I agree, it is more a Waters`s solo album (even Nick Mason said it in interviews). Despite Waters`s ego was out of control more here than on previous Pink Floyd`s albums, is still a good record, better than "The Wall". The lyrics are very good and show that Waters is a very good lyricist, more than a good singer and bass player. It is an album full of emotions. But Gilmour and Mason had enough. It was impossible to work with Waters again.Waters left in late 1985 and his ego wanted to stop Gilmour, Mason and Wright (which sound more like Pink Floyd than Waters alone) to being Pink Floyd in new albums. But Waters failed to stop them.

If the music of The Wall is "un-Floydian" in comparison to their earlier works, then The Final Cut is a near-complete departure. With Richard WRIGHT completely forced out of the band, Nick MASON no longer drumming on all tracks of an album, and even David GILMOUR's creative input severely curtailed (he even chose to have his production credits removed on this one), TFC was indeed "by Roger Waters, performed by [part of] Pink Floyd." As a PINK FLOYD album, TFC falls short--drained of the others' influence, it merits in extremely strong lyrics and use of effects, but gone are the elaborate chord structures and moments where the music is left to speak for itself. As a FLOYD album, TFC earns only a 3.

However--if viewed as a Roger WATERS solo album, TFC not only earns a 5, but is in my opinion his greatest work ever. Not even Amused to Death tops this achievement. Although many songs on TFC were outtakes from The Wall, the feeling they give me is entirely different--here, underneath the bitterness and bluster, is the sensitive, scared, and soulful Roger WATERS. Nowhere else does WATERS allow himself to be vulnerable to this degree. From his deepest idealism ("Take heed of the dream...") to his deepest fears ("And if I open my heart to you, show you my weak side, what would you do?"), to realizing the futility of bitterness ("We were all equal in the end...") he has laid bare his soul. This is a rare occasion where he is not just blunt--but honest. These lyrics--particularly the title track--expose what lies behind the wall, and that final deep, secret yearning: "Could anybody love [me]? Or is it just a crazy dream!?"

The sound production is nothing short of magnificent, topping The Wall, rivaling Amused to Death. The vocals are easily WATERS' best ever. Ranging from angered to anguished, spiteful to soulful, what he lacks in pitch control he makes up in passion. Yet even his technique seems improved, in places taking on a delicacy and subtlety he has never repeated. Musically, one must not forget the accomplishments of guitarist David GILMOUR--although he is not given any credits, his solos are the match of WATERS' impassioned vocals. While many people seem to be panning them, the solos are angry, indignant, curt--exactly what's needed here. The third figure I believe deserves far greater credit that he is given--that is Michael KAMEN, the man responsible for the gorgeous orchestrations that almost...almost...make even me forget the absence in the band. In fact, I know that without KAMEN's orchestrations, there is no way I would ever consider awarding a 4 to this album.

But ultimately, I cannot forget. There are places where the piano and organ work are woefully uninspired. Even WRIGHT's partial presence on The Wall was more alive. The piano playing is not bad, really, still likable, but as a listener I found myself wondering if KAMEN was told note-for-note what to play, especially after hearing his much livelier performance on the David Gilmour in Concert DVD. But by far, the biggest problem comes from the Hammond organ. Nowhere is it more obviously dead than on "Your Possible Pasts". Never have I heard this normally beautiful instrument emit such a toneless, dry, and lifeless sound. This is where the hole in PINK FLOYD gapes so wide that one almost could almost fall through it. Listen to WRIGHT's masterful Hammond playing on Animals to hear what could have been. It just about hurts.

That said, I do award TFC a composite rating of 4--a mediocre 3 stars as a "Floyd" effort, but a magnificent 5 stars as a Roger WATERS effort. The perception depends entirely on which approach you take. I hope that, whichever side you are on, this review has helped you to a decision appropriate to your tastes.

All band infighting and comments about this being a Roger-solo-album aside, "The Final Cut" is...an acquired taste.

Apart from the obvious difficult lyrical content and historical references that must be navigated through (not an easy feat for anyone born after this album was released!), this album is significantly impressive on the technical level. This album incorporates some of the latest cutting-edge technology available in 1982, in that it utilized 'Holophonics'. Listen again to this album in quad sound if you are at all able, it might change your opinion of it. The music itself is structured quite dynamically, and is very layered, with lots of things going on. Sounds of rain, cars passing, bombs whizzing overhead and exploding behind you are utilized not as 'special effects', but as actually a kind of 'musical effect'.

"The Final Cut" means more to Brits than others, if only because a lot of the conceptual material is quintessentially British. References to: Dame (Former Prime Minister) Margaret Thatcher; the shipyards closing on the River Clyde; the docks at Southampton (where soldiers waved goodbye on their way to campaigns on the continent) and the Falkland Islands' War resonate still with those in GB. Not to mention the use of the poppy flower image, the symbol of remembrance of those who died serving their country, like Roger's father.

My favourite song on the album, 'Two Suns In the Sunset' is quite possibly the darkest piece of music ever written by Roger Waters. "As the windshield melts, and my tears evaporate. Leaving only charcoal to defend." Uplifting stuff about a car crash!

Gilmour's contribution to this record is quite small. But where he does appear, his solos convey an awful lot of emotion considering how limited the input Waters allocated to him. "The Final Cut" barely deserves 3/5 stars. Definitely not essential.

Listening to this album is like slogging through a marsh. One can only listen to Roger Water's misery and despair for so long. While his anti-everything rants had wonderful music to back them up on previous Floyd outings, ("Animals", "The Wall"), this one sounds basically the same throughout. It is as if Roger Waters is giving a monologue to sparse musical accompaniment. The songs are basically interchangeable, (which is not at all a good sign). Nick Mason (Drums) and Dave Gilmour (Guitar) rarely show up on this album, and Rick Wright (Keys) isn't here at all, having been fired during the making of the wall. Essentially this is a Roger Water's solo album under the Pink Floyd banner, made up of bad material intended for a third LP for the wall. The stronger songs amongst this cheerless mush are: "The Fletcher Memorial Home", which features an outstanding solo from Gilmour, and "when the Tigers Broke Free", originally from the Wall soundtrack, a touching song about the death of Water's father in WWII. Overall, unless you are an intense Floyd/Waters fan, avoid this album - 2 Stars.

Years ago I was given this album a 2 stars. Currently and after several spins, I have found something more in the album that make me reconsider and give it this time a 3 stars. I still believe that should have been more than anything the first solo effort of Mr. Waters. But, I guess give them the benefit of the doubt and I will say more than ever, a continuation or a follow up to The Wall. Some tracks but especially "Fletcher" has grown on me through the years. I would have to say that the extra star is because the emotional voice and effort of Mr. Waters as well as some great guitar moments of Mr. Gilmour. But, indeed the magic of PF has gone...into oblivion Not an essential album for your collection, but an essential listen at least for any Floyd fan.

"The Wall" was the last classic FLOYD album and having Wright left the band, Waters took the remaining poor Gilmour and Mason to back him up for this "sequel" to "The Wall" - a boring, lousy album with weak songs, over-lamentic themes and Waters ego-trip. I was able to actually sit through this album only a couple of times before I decided to sell it cheaply at the local music exchange. Avoid this, unless you must own everything that bears the name PINK FLOYD or Roger Waters!

Pink Floyd was turned into a one man show in 1983. The man in charge was Roger Waters. Some of the other Floyd members were still around but didn't got any input. Only the splendid guitar solos of Dave Gilmour does remind you you're listening to a Floyd album. Unlike on their previous work, Water does all the vocals, leaving only "Not now John" for Gilmour. On some moments the voice is the only thing that's on the front besides the piano and the wonderful orchestrations of Michael Kamen. MK could be considered as the non official replacement for Richard Wright. But I like the voice of Water as well, during several excerpts on this album he seems to be more whispering than singing. On the quiet song "the gunners dream" he sounds truly fantastic, a bit similar to the voice of Loyd Cole. This beautiful song is on par to "nobody home" from the Wall. Being a fan of Floyd, I miss the atmospheric moments and the albums lacks some up-tempo songs and harmony vocals which are a trademark of the sound of this band. Let's be honest, this shouldn't be called progressive rock.

On the final cut Waters digs deep into the subject of the second world war. I always considered this album as an epilogue to The Wall where the absence of the father was presented as one of the bricks between the main character and his audience. It seems that the message is more important than the music. As a Waters album, it stands better than "The Pros and cons of." but worse than "Amused to death". Just like on the quoted albums, you should listen from start to finish. The separate tracks don't make any sense without hearing all of the album especially concerning the lyrics. To my humble opinion, "Your possible pasts" , "the gunner's dream", "get you filthy. and "Two suns in the sunsets" are the best tracks this album has to offer. Especially "Two suns in the sunset" shows the best side of Waters. His excellent song writing is unquestionable. Overall there're no major flaws, only "not now John" sounds like a fish out of water as it is the only up-tempo track and not a very good one. On the remaster there's a bonus track added. "Where the tigers broke free" would have been more suitable as a bonus for "The Wall" to my opinion. Here it also doesn't really fit in musically.

Overall the final cut isn't a bad album but there 're not many moments I like to listen to this kind of memorials. Rarely I'm in the mood for this kind of pessimism in my spare time. In an interview Waters told once of an old lady who thanked him because this album gave her the chance to get over the loss of her husband who was killed in the war. He quoted her to convince the press that this was a good album. From a lyrical pint of view it is and I can sympathise to Waters views on the matter. Musically there's so little Floyd in here. The cover art gives you a clue what you can expect from "The Final Cut". A sober, modest affair.

Carried with emotion, this work written by Roger Waters' lacks some great musical moments which are replaced by long and amazing lyrics. I think this is a mark of WATERS' songwriting, but i maintain a preference for the instrumental than the vocals, so this album doesn't have the same effect as other FLOYD works. I think it is an incredibly intelligent piece of music, but the melodies sometimes fail to captivate me.

Personally, I love this album. It's not a plethora of credentials the band has earned with its previous albums but it's more on the music per se. If I was not given any information that this is a Pink Floyd album I still love this one. Two reasons that support my opinion: 1. I like the energy the singer sings throughout the album which basically has less music than vocal line. 2. The music is thematic even without knowing what's the story line of the album. In fact, I purchased this album in cassette version but I got trouble with the noise level that became obvious because this album has many silent parts. So, couple of years later I purchased the CD format. The result is remarkably different: now I can hear clearly the sighs and silent sound effects in its subtleties especially if I listen to it using earphones or decent stereo set at home.

The opening track "Post War Dream is a requiem after the war. Eevn if I put off the war context I can still use this track to contemplate for other life issues facing most of us on daily basis. The stream continues nicely with "The Possible Pasts" , "One of The Few" to "The Hero's Return". In "The Gunner's Dream" I like the accentuated vocal by Waters whereby the peak happens when he screams "And hold on to your dreams!" with daunting music that continues with saxophone solo. Oh . what a great part, my friend! Not the sax solo per se but the time when he starts screaming the lyrics, it's really cool.

As I mentioned before, I personally like this album. So, despite bad reviews about this album, I still recommend you to have this album in your collection. If you doubt it, borrow the CD from your neighbor, play the first five tracks only. If it blows you, it definitely the whole album would blow you! Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Between the years of 1979 and 1983 Pink Floyd released a mega successful concept album, a subsequent tour of said album, the release of a major motion picture of said album, and the loss of a key member of the group in Rick Wright. In 1983, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Nick Mason returned to the studio to record what would be the last Pink Floyd album to feature the bassist/lyricist, and it would also be Pink Floyd's worst. The album in question in The Final Cut, and the title of the album says it all, this was the final cut of the classic Pink Floyd lineup. The story behind this album is more of a continuation of the subplot of the lost father subplot of The Wall, but in this instance, the father returns home and becomes alienated by the change that surrounds him. This album is more of a cynical view of politics and snipes every major leader of any major foreign power in the process. This album is often looked at with disgust among fans, and I can see why.

Opening with The Post War Dream, the orchestral scores and the depressing lyrics are there from the beginning. In fact, this may be one of the most depressing albums ever written. There is little guitar and this is more of a vocal album for Waters to show that he can (at least try to) sing. Your Possible Pasts continues the depressing theme, and I do like the main melody in the song, it has a sneering feel to it which I like. One of the Few is a little interlude piece that (yet again) continues the depressing, unwilling to change the world theme. The Hero's Return features some nice orchestration, but I still just can't get into it. The same goes with The Gunner's Dream and Paranoid Eyes, the melodies and themes just blur together and there is no real coherent flow to the album. Get Your Hands off My Filthy Desert/The Fletcher Memorial Home/Southampton Dock are among the tracks I do like. With Waters at his most cynical and descriptive. The main lyrical theme, "Maggie what have you done" is repeated many times during these 9 minutes.

The Final Cut is the precursor to my favorite song on the album, and acts as a nice introduction to it. Not Now John is my favorite song on the album. It's Gilmour's solen contribution vocally, and he really hits the mark. His bitter vocal performance of some of Water's most hate filled lyrics (filled with explicit language) is further added by the female chorus repeating, "F**k all that" over and over again. Gilmour's solo is his best on the album and this song really saves the album fromg getting a 1/5. Two Suns in a Sunset finishes the album, and it gives a nice conclusion to the story of the Final Cut. I like the lyrical finale to the album, it really sums up Roger's sentiments well, "Ashes and diamonds/foe and friend/we were all equal in the end".

Overall, I am left cold by this album, more so than the Wall. I view this album as Roger going overboard with the "my daddy died and I never got to know him" theme, which is something that I find hard to grasp. If you like Roger Waters' solo albums, you'll find something to like about this. Despite me liking Amused to Death so much, I just cannot recommend this to any casual listener, it's really a fans only album. 2/5.

Wow. Just wow Roger Waters, what have you created? This is what happens when good musicians play because they have to, not because they want to. Waters told Nick Mason and David Gilmour that they were making an album and that was that, although I think it would be more proper to call this a Roger Waters solo album. Now let's get to the music, shall we? In my opinion this was the worst of the Pink Floyd's offerings just for it's lack of effort. It is lazy, rambling, and it sounds like a funeral procession. On the other side, I did particulary enjoy "Not Now John", "Two Suns In The Sunset", and even "The Fletcher Memorial Home" has its moments.

If you want to get started with Floyd, steer clear of this album!!!!! For die hards only.

Roger Waters last hurrah under the old moniker, and a rather difficult one to absorb. The Final Cut tends to separate fans into clear 'love' and 'love-not' camps - there is rarely a middle ground. The style that began to develop on The Wall would flourish here: generally intimate, with Roger's anguished vocal and wordy lyrics very dominant amidst very sparse acoustic based arrangements with generally quite short bursts of excellent classic band-generated passages, the musical highlights being a couple of stunning solos from Gilmour and some divine sax.

Gilmour's guitar sounds wonderful as always as in Your Possible Pasts, but much of the album passes slowly with just Roger and his bile-ridden tirades and world-weariness singing over simple backing. If lyrics are not your scene, then this will not be the album for you. The pervading atmosphere is one of sadness, loss, regret and pent-up anger at senseless waste of human lives. Very laudable, but perhaps Roger ought to have paid a little more attention to the sound he was making.

The Final Cut : The Final Waters.

Almost 25 years together... The last six being particularly difficult to live for the other three members of the band. So, Wright left the band unexpectedly; Mason was even replaced for some tracks (i.e. "Two Suns in the Sunset").

Let's be honest. This is not a good album. The poorest since "Obscured" in 1972 IMO. This album has the same mood as "The Wall". Its first chosen name was "Spare Bricks". It is an uninspired effort.

Only a few good songs, namely "Post War Dream", "The Gunner's Dream" which sounds more as a track from the DSOTM period with great sax playing, "Not Now John" is a clone of "Another brick" Part II, and finally "Two Suns in the Sunset". By no means, they are Floyd's classic of course. The title track is not bad either.

All the other tracks are sub-par for the Floyd (but again, this is more a Waters project than a Floyd's one). It will reach Nr. one in the UK and Nr. six in the US.

The atmosphere within the band is dreadful. To illustrate this, I would use some quotes to describe how it was.

Nick : "It was really Roger's solo album. The rest of us just sort of drifted into it." David : "It reached the point that I just had to say "If you need a guitar player, give me a call and I'll come and do it."

"If someone couldn't get enough of his vision on the table to convince the rest of us, it would have been dropped. "The Wall" album, which started off unlistenable and turned into a great piece, was the last album with this spirit of compromise. With The Final Cut, Waters became impossible to deal with."

Roger : "You can hear the mad tension running through it all and, that the making of TFC was absolute misery and a horrible time." "Well, there are those who contend it's not over, of course. But making The Final Cut was misery. We didn't work together at all. I had to do it more or less single-handed, working with Michael Kamen, my co-producer".

David : "I always made it absolutely clear to Roger that I liked being a Floyd member and had every intention of remaining one. Make no bones about it, WE would carry on."

Roger (textually) :"You'll never f.ck..g do it..."

ZowieZiggy : "You were completely wrong Roger !"

Two stars.

I fall into that category of Pink Floyd fan who discovered them with ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ as a teenager, albeit a couple years after it released; then really didn’t pay them too much mind until Rogers Waters bashed a big white brick into my skull with ‘The Wall’. After that they had my full attention.

For me, and probably many others who fit the same Floyd-fan profile, ‘The Final Cut’ is a peculiarity. Richard Wright was long gone, although most of us didn’t know it yet, but the keyboards are remarkably similar to those of ‘The Wall’, which in fact was much more sparse than most of their seventies albums. But for me at least this album has the same general themes and tenor as its predecessor, with gloomy arrangements; abrupt and discordant flair-ups to provide companionship to Roger Water’s angst-ridden lyrics; and that sense of incessant patience in the slowly-executed work as a whole. The album hasn’t held up well with most hard-core fans over the years, but it still sold quite well and ended up at or near the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, which is more than just about anything else considered progressive was doing at the time.

This is one of the last foldout album covers I can remember buying, and also was one of the first not to be released on 8-track, which undoubtedly caused many an old hippie to have to upgrade their car’s stereo as a result.

While this has been called a de facto Waters solo album, I think there’s enough of David Gilmour’s distinctive guitar to make it at least sound like a Floyd album, and to be honest Nick Mason’s drums hadn’t exactly been a dominant presence since ‘Animals’ anyway, and maybe even since before that. The orchestra and saxophone were definite plusses for me, and as a piano junkie I was more than happy to hear plenty of that as well.

But the best parts of this album are the lyrics. In addition to providing a sort of continuity to ‘The Wall’, this album also brings a sense of closure to that album, which didn’t really have one of its own. And there are some of Waters’ best lines here as well, including the unforgettable verse -

“If it wasn’t for the Nips being so good at building ships, the yard would still be open on the Clyde. And it can’t be much fun for them beneath the Rising Sun, with all their kids committing suicide.”

And the fitting tribute for those leaders who play chess with the lives of those who appoint them as protectors –

“Safe in the permanent gaze of a cold glass eye with their favorite toys, they’ll be good girls and boys; in the Fletcher Memorial Home for colonial wasters of life and limb”.

The link to ‘The Wall’ begins with “The Post War Dream”, and carries the tale on for the rest of the front side of the album with a series of vignettes about the madness of the aftermath of war in the battle-scarred psyches and broken lives. Waters never did seem to get over being a war-baby, and the emotions he reveals here are ones that most of us were spared for years afterwards. Unfortunately a new generation may live them again, which is what makes words like these important even now, despite what one might think of this album musically or in the context of the band’s career.

With the back side Waters seems to be shifting to laying blame and lashing out though, specifically Ms. Thatcher and her ilk around the world, but takes a few moments out on the title track to lay out the postscript of Pink’s story, and to reveal that the album’s title refers to that final gash in the arm of self-destruction.

And the album ends with a glimpse of a possible end for our world as a whole, in a firestorm of nuclear holocaust, mixed in the dual picture once again of self-destruction. It’s a pretty bleak ending, bringing finality but not necessarily closure. I think Syd Barrett wasn’t the only one in this band that danced with the muse of madness.

Anyway, all that aside I think that this is an important album, not only in the history of this band but also in our collective modern musical history. And being someone who listened to hundreds and hundreds of this album’s peers in about a ten year window before and after its release, I can say with confidence that it evokes as much or more emotion, good or bad, as any of them. So I don’t have any problem giving this one four stars, and recommending it to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. It's very close to a five star album in my mind, missing only because of its slightly sorded genesis. Anyway, the human portraits painted here (and the actions that led to their being experienced in the first place) are why we should all continue to hope for

peace

The Final Floyd Album

After the final masterpiece in the Floyd canon, The Wall, there was really nowhere to go but down given the state of relationships in the group. They should have stopped with The Wall but decided to put forth one final release. That's the conventional wisdom but in fact The Final Cut is yet another great album from the mind of Roger Waters, and it is the last true Floyd album (what came after I could describe in all sorts of colorful language, but I'll be nice and simply say it has nothing to do with Pink Floyd.)

The Final Cut is often described as the outtakes from The Wall and it would seem to be true. But since The Wall is an utter masterpiece it is bound to produce some good outtakes. There are some great lyrics and nice moments here: The Post War Dream, Paranoid Eyes, Fletcher Memorial Home, The Final Cut, Two Suns..pretty respectable stuff. Dave's contributions here are considerably less but when he does play his solos are still perfect for the songs.

The downside here is Not Now John which is really down among the very lowest of Pink Floyd moments. Truly awful. And I get a bit tired of Roger's vocal style that began with this album and continued into Pros and Cons, where he continually goes back and forth between the quietest whisper and then BOOM the full volume back in your face, and then the whisper again. But that's a minor nitpick.

The Final Cut is a beautiful and personal document that still finds Waters capable of expressing with unbelievable effectiveness all that is haunting, stark, bleak, cold. And yet I feel great joy listening to these albums which are so efficient, melodic, and perfectly constructed. It is unfortunate what happened to the band after this record and I wonder what could have been. But from Piper through The Final Cut, this band put together a string of albums that few other groups can match and together they have a body of work that will be remembered long after they are gone from this Earth. Not many groups can say that.

The suitably titled Final Cut was the last Pink Floyd album with Roger Waters on it. The tension between Waters and Gilmour and Mason was apparently too much that after this album was recorded they unofficially split up and pursued their respective solo careers. Richard Wright also does not appear on this album as he left the band during the recording sessions for The Wall. Waters dominates this album, with Gilmour and Mason playing a much lesser role in the group's affairs. The result, as you might expect, is a dark album in a similar format as The Wall and Waters' later solo albums, sparse on instrumentation and loaded with scathing anti-this and anti-that lyrics. Subject matter tends to be about the so called "Post-War dream" (referring to World War II), World War II, the Falklands War, nuclear weapons, Margaret Thatcher, and pretty much everyone that was in power in 1983. In other words, dark and bleak stuff.

It's not quite as good as The Wall, and is clearly dissimilar to the band's pre-Wall albums. The one thing I find entertaining about it is that no matter how depressed I am, when I listen to it, it cheers me up simply because I now know there is someone even more depressed than me. I'm not sure if that was what Waters had intended, but it sure does work for me. The Final Cut is as or more depressing than The Wall. It also has the advantage of being only one LP, unlike the 2-LP The Wall. Two LPs of depressing music can really be annoying after awhile. Still, a good album, but far from essential. Waters and Floyd fans should have this. Three stars.

The PINK FLOYD album that provokes the most extreme reactions. This review will not disappoint.

This record ought not to have been made. WATERS has already had his say ad nauseam about the war and the death of his father: from 'Corporal Clegg' on 'A Saucerful of Secrets', barely an album has gone by without the obligatory war reminisce. But a whole album of off-casts from 'The Wall' does nothing but establish that WATERS has far less to say than he thought.

Here's what's wrong with this album. First, it's bereft of musical ideas, substituting the tedious, repetitive sudden shift in dynamics from piano to fortissimo for the gradual build that made PINK FLOYD listenable. Soft, loud, soft, loud, ten times a song. Here's a tip, ROGER, we've got the point. I can barely believe this gifted man has become a one-trick pony, but it's true, as evidenced by this and his first solo album. Where's the subtlety in this? The enjoyment? Second, what music exists is second-hand, having been culled from 'The Wall': throughout the album we hear motifs 'The Wall' reprised. Listen to 'The Hero's Return' and the rhythm guitar straight from 'Another Brick'. Third, the singing. There isn't any. WATERS in turns either whispers or shouts. Appalling. Fourth, it's just so damn obvious. How about some sound effects that make us think, rather than bludgeoning us over the head? This feels like the musical equivalent of watching one of those naive History Channel docos. I'm anti-war, but this is just so one-sided it's not credible. Fifth, and most damning, the rest of the band are invisible. WRIGHT has been fired, replaced not by a keyboardist, but by an orchestra. GILMOUR is dusted off to do the odd truncated solo and gets to sing for a few seconds. MASON slaps the skins like a metronome, bored with the proceedings.

WATERS is a hypocrite, protesting the selfish actions of politicians ripping the world apart while acting like a tyrant and dictator as he destroys his band. But we're well beyond hypocrisy here. This stuff is puerile. Infantile. Simplistic. His megalomania is breathtaking: he designed the album cover, played many of the guitars (clearly GILMOUR wasn't good enough), got drummers in to do some of MASON's parts, and even had his brother-in-law make a video of four tracks from the album. And on the back cover he graciously admitted that PINK FLOYD helped him perform it. Staggeringly, he later admitted that 'there was no band' (Mason, Inside Out). Why not?

I'm not going to bother talking about the musical highlights, because there aren't any. The songs pass by in a melange of simplistic orchestrations and soft/loud dichotomies. The album has a definite highlight, however, a moment that rises well above the rest. It's the appalling moment when someone shouts 'Get your filthy hands off my desert!' I guess WATERS meant for it to be funny, but the incipient racism is breathtaking, as though a desert couldn't possibly be worth fighting over. People live in them, ROGER.

To sum up, the album is an unmitigated stinker. And yes, I'm coloured by my deep disappointment on purchasing this record. Others find merit in it, though I cannot. Look in the dictionary under 'self-indulgence' and you'll see a picture of ROGER WATERS singing 'The Final Cut.'

Don't know about this one being really 'Progressive', but it's a phenomenal production and a great offering of more misery from the Waters-dominated era of Floyd. As has been said in the past, 'The Wall' part II perhaps. The album flows effortlessly as one, lots of incredible dynamics and bombastic orchestral arrangements, but suggests a band in the grip of turmoil - Wright had been sacked, Mason provided his Drumming, and Gilmour's input was barely minimal, but his few moments in the spot-light shone ever so brightly - his lead-breaks in 'Your Possible Pasts', 'The Final Cut', and especially his solo on 'The Fletcher Memorial Home' are among his best ever committed to vinyl, and of high musical value to an otherwise negative, conceptual project where the story of one who lost his Father during WWII, and various political issues, are the main focus, the musical arrangement being a tad 'secondary'. Various guests help fill the gap : Michael Kamen (Piano, Harmonium) Andy Bown (Hammond), Ray Cooper (Percussion), Raphael Ravenscroft (Tenor Sax - from Gerry Rafferty's backing band), and Andy Newmark providing the Drums for the track 'Two Suns In The Sunset', a piece featuring some odd rhythms within its arrangement. Overall, it remains an excellent album falling under the name of Pink Floyd, and worthy of exploration.

Just another brick in the wall

Coming into the '80s most prog bands had changed their style dramatically to adapt to the coming times. One of the '60s and '70s most creative and innovative bands, Pink Floyd, however, decided to stick to what they know. Yessir, this album by them still feels late '70s, but only because it feels like they wanted to continue on a worn path. Seen by Roger Waters as a tribute to his father, it seems that he was inspired by his own work on The Wall to do something along these lines.

One of the things that is noticeable immediately on the album is the line-up on the back cover. Especially where it says "Written By: Roger Waters, Performed By: Pink Floyd". Talk about an ego trip. However, this album has always been seen as a Waters solo album by the band, who really doesn't acknowledge the album at all.

That's all okay of course, the album is still good. What's different about this album to The Wall is that this one is more of a concept album than a rock opera (if you want to nit-pick), and it definitely plays out more that way. Also nice is Water's emotional delivery with his vocals on all the songs since this seems to be a topic he really cares about. The melancholic opener, The Post War Dream, is a good indicator as Waters shouts out the lyrics at the listener. Other standouts are few, however, as the album does tend to meld together into a thick paste at times. The Gunner's Dream is another excellent track which carries on the sad feeling, as is Paranoid Eyes.

Two Suns In The Sunset has to be the biggest standout on the album, however, as a dark and almost loathing song played with a sad voice with apocalyptic lyrics. This is a very welcome addition to the album and an unfortunately overlooked track in the Late-Floyd discography.

There are a couple of lower points to the album as well. The two singles, The Fletcher Memorial Home is another melancholic song that unfortunately takes it one step past mourning and more into whining with its lyrics. This was seemingly Pink Floyd's attempt to make a catchy song, but it doesn't work that well. Not Now John is something Pink Floyd have never done before, and that's a hard edged standard rock song. "F*** all that! We gotta get on with this!" and then the chorus of girls sing behind "F*** all that, ooooh!" Kind of fun, but not really the kind of thing the prog heads are looking for.

In the end this is still a good album, but I wouldn't recommend it further than people who really want to hear The Wall disc three. 3 stars. Water's last attempt with the band which he unfortunately abused.

This is Pink Floyd's worst worst worst album..

It stinks of Roger Waters ego.

It is in essence the 'Love Beach' of Emerson Lake and Palmer.

It is 'The Wall' without the bricks.

A depressing excessive shocker.

What is perhaps more shocking is reading these glowing 5 stars reviews on this corker! Man, music is subjective, granted, but how can you call this Pnk Floyd. The cover is even unFloydian and so is the material. Actually if you tears off the Pink Floyd title i might award this 3 stars for Waters tenacity.

But....The tracks are forgettable and it is a solo project for Waters, rather than a band effort.

Where were the other band members during this? Ah yes, Roger Waters was exercising his control and systematically mixed them out of the tracks.

Wondefful Waters, CONGRATULATIONS IN TAKING THE ESSENCE OUT OF THE MUSIC!

Highlights? The Post War Dream - OK

The Hero's Return - if youre in the mood

The Gunners Dream - OK

Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert - curious

The Fletcher Memorial Home - OK

Not Now John - best track but not much better than the aforementioned tracks.

Theres lotsa F bombs on this too and I hate that. No need for it and no need for any of this.

Nothing more needs to be said.

I wont waste my time with this any further.

Just avoid this.

It contaminates Pink Floyd's catalogue.

Good album, but the worst to that date for Pink Floyd! It is interesting release with the fact that it's almost Roger Waters' solo album, but counts as Pink Floyd one. Richard Wright is not included any more in the band and we can feel it. The composition of the album is extremely strained, black and pessimistic. The songs are not memorable enough. The tensions between Waters and the others became bigger and bigger. There isn't enough synchronism and logical links between the instruments. The album is little boring. But it contains some interesting ideas for bad mood. Appropriate only for melancholy mood. It looks like The Wall, but much more without its own shape. 3 stars!!!

I can agree with many Pink Floyd fans' assertion that The Final Cut should have been a Roger Waters solo album. On this one, the other members of Pink Floyd had been relegated to Rick Wright status, which is to say, session musicians with little or no collaborative effort. In the same breath, however, many of those same fans will readily admit that Roger Waters was the songwriting genius of Pink Floyd, and the one that is ultimately responsible for producing something that eludes nearly all progressive rock musicians: Commercial success without suspending personal creativity. Without Waters, there would be no Animals, Dark Side of the Moon, or The Wall. But on those great albums, there was clearly collaboration as well as variation; The Final Cut has a stripped-down sound and little variety. Regardless of all that, it stands as a great and poignant work, one that never ceases to sadden me, to appreciate soldiers past and present, to reflect on the difficulties of war, and to enjoy myself, all at the same time. I should state, that while this is clearly an anti-war album, I only consider myself anti-war in that I hate war but recognize its necessity to maintain peace. I state this only because I disagree with the attitude of the main, nay, only, songwriter, but I find it a profound and thought-provoking album. It's rather unfortunate, however, that Roger Waters was such a heel to his band mates.

"The Post War Dream" It starts off with the sound of a radio dial and various news reporters, and then Waters's soft sing, before giving way to the shouting and shrieking that will characterize the most dramatic parts of the album. There are extreme similarities between "The Post War Dream" and John Prine's 1972 song "Sam Stone," which is also about a war veteran. The two songs share the same chord progression, melody, and are in the same key.

"Your Possible Pasts" Featuring a swampy rhythm guitar and more soft-sung lyrics, this is a very dramatic song, much like the whole album. Gilmour produces an absolutely screaming guitar solo here- perhaps one of his best.

"One of the Few" Here is a track that offers insight into the character of the teacher in The Wall.

"When the Tigers Broke Free" A slow dirge commemorating the memory and lamenting the death of Roger Waters's father, it's a moving song, even if it has little to do with Pink Floyd, per se. It was not included on the original release.

"The Hero's Return" This short one features a great group of guitars. The lead guitar plays a neat melody on top of a delayed electric guitar that is reminiscent of several songs on The Wall. The acoustic guitar adds to the richness of the melody. Waters's vocal performance is initially an aggravated one, but becomes soft and haunting on a later verse. The final part (using a common chord progression that has been well-frequented throughout Water's work) flows into the next song.

"The Gunner's Dream" Even those who denounce this album as Pink Floyd's worst rarely criticize this song. It's one of the most chill-inducing and saddening pieces of music ever written. From the explosion, to the first piano chords (with that haunting, steadily ascending fifth note), to the reflective lyrics, to that moment when Roger Waters cries out to hold on to the dream and his voice transforms into saxophone- this song is remarkable in so many ways. It forces those of us on safe civilian soil to consider the uncomfortable loneliness of soldiers who are in the corner of some foreign field, having a dream that those of us back home are protected, well fed, and have "recourse to the law."

"Paranoid Eyes" Slow and brooding, this song relays the disillusionment a veteran has with his world after the war. He tries to make merry, but only becomes more sullen and drunk. It's sad, but beautiful. Again, there is an economy to the music, but the sound effects (like the footsteps and the laughter in the pub) and the descending piano runs are amazingly effective.

"Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" This is another short track, naming names and describing Waters's loathing for the administrative decisions of his time.

"The Fletcher Memorial Home" By far the most scathing number on the album, Waters makes the bold claim that war-mongering leaders (in his opinion, the likes of Thatcher and Reagan) should be placed in a home bearing the middle name of his late father. There, they could feel important and wage war without disturbing the rest of us. The song features Waters at his whiniest. The music is sparse: Most of the instrumentation here is mere background sound to accompany Waters's snide poetry. While certainly not dreadful, it isn't the best this record has to offer. Waters's attempt to wax political only makes him come across as arrogant and condescending, especially for a man with such little foreign policy experience. Gilmour gets a rare chance to rip through a guitar solo, and this he does, but while mostly sticking to the notes in the chords.

"Southampton Dock" More of an introduction to "The Final Cut," this short song does a terrific job expressing the sadness of war ("there were too many spaces in the line").

"The Final Cut" Flowing directly from "Southampton Dock," Waters sings over a lone piano before the rest of the band comes in. This song features one of the best melodies present, and is definitely one of the most powerful pieces. It is difficult not to reflect on the post-war loneliness and misery many veterans must endure. An orchestral motif from "Comfortably Numb" is revisited during this piece, and Gilmour delivers a stunning dual guitar solo.

"Not Now John" "Not Now John" is the heaviest song on the album, one which was censored as a single. Once again, the lyrics, which dominate the song, are clever and well-written. The music is similar in feel to the heavier tracks on the previous album.

"Two Suns in the Sunset" The last song is mostly a quiet song mainly played on acoustic guitar. The lyrics, despite the pleasant major key the song is played in, reflect the doom that faces humanity after the dropping of a nuclear bomb: "The sun is in the east, even though the day is done-" hence the fireball of the destructive holocaust. In the middle section, it gets briefly heavy and Waters emits one of his piercing shrieks. The song returns to its peaceful form for the final verse, after which an oxymoronic saxophonist plays an easygoing solo.

If you look at the amounts of copies sold of The Final Cut, you'll see it wasn't very succesful compared to the previous albums. The reason for that, I think, is because this album is very dark, not very loud, and to some people not very exciting. The first time I listened to this album I pretty much hated it, I found it a dull, unexciting album. After a year or something I listened to it again, I don't know what it was, but I enjoyed it much, much more. Listening it over and over again, it now probably is my most listened album ever!

The album starts with "The Post War Dream", after a minute of radio sounds, you quietly hear Roger sing. After two minutes the song reaches it's climax with great vocals and David's crying guitar on the background, great intro to the album.

"Your Possible Pasts" is the next song, just as most of the songs on the album, it's pretty quiet, except for the solo. The solo is not as complicated as most of David's solo's are, but is very powerful.

"One Of The Few" is a short bridge between "Your Possible Pasts" to "The Hero's Return", it's very haunting, and though being very short, it's a great song.

The next song, "The Hero's Return" starts with a pretty catchy riff and powerful vocals and distorted chords, after one and a half minute there is a quiet break, wich changes into the outro. Though just being three minutes long, the song changes a lot of times.

Following "The Hero's Return" is "The Gunner's Dream", to me the most haunting, emotional song. Roger sings it with so much emotion, you can really hear that, definitely the "Night after night..." part, which is after four minutes have passed, gives me shivers. This song is perhaps the best song Pink Floyd has made since 1977's Animals.

"Paranoid Eyes" is also a good song, it has nice, evil, piano in it, and is very smooth and quiet. I don't think it is as good as most of the other songs on the album however.

After the sort of break "Get Your Filthy Hand Off My Desert" we reach "The Fletcher Memorial Home", wich is about Roger's father, who died in the Falklands war. The song has some nice time signatures and chords, also, it has a great guitar solo, wich sounds a bit like the solo of "Mother", from their previous album, The Wall.

The next song is the short "Southampton Dock", wich excists out of just acoustic guitar and Roger's vocals (and some very quiet strings on the background). What I like most about this short song are the lyrics, wich are beautiful.

The title track is just like "The Gunner's Dream" one of the highlights of the album. The song starts out quiet, but reaches several climaxes, one of them being a dark, powerful guitar solo by David Gilmour. The other one is the build up towards the sound of a shotgun. The lyrics at that climax are said ro be related to the previous album. The lyrics are stated as following: "Dial the combination, open the priesthole, and if I'm in I'll tell you what's behind the wall", the sound of the shotgun makes it unable to hear Roger saying "...what's behind the wall".

The next song is the only contibution of David Gilmour to this album. "Not Now John" is in a completely different style than most of the album, it's just like what "Young Lust" was on The Wall, very powerful, a great rock song. Though being a great song, I don't really think it fits in with the other songs, when I am in the mood of the more quiet songs on the album I can't really enjoy this one.

"Two Sun's In The Sunset", a very mellow song. Just as the opener of the album it's about nuclear weapons, "The sun is in the east, even though the day is done". After two verses there is a very powerful part, probably the most powerful part of the album, including "Not Now John". A heavily distorted guitar is heard while a child is desperately screaming and Roger creates one of those special "Roger moments" with powerful "shrieking" vocals. The song ends with a nice saxophone solo.

Though people are saying this is just a Roger Waters solo album, I think it's very different from Roger's solo albums. If you compare this album to Roger Waters' "Pro's And Cons Of Hitchiking" it's a entirely different listen, mainly because of the guitar I think. Even though David Gilmour hasn't been able to have a larger contribution to this album, his unique style of guitar playing gives this album the finishing thouch it needs to become such a dark and amazing album.

A personal affair....

Roger and Co. had decided to release a ''Spare Bricks'' compilation with un-released material which was mainly featured on the The Wall Movie, however with some time and conmovation, this brought Roger use the new songs, and write more, and in the end resulting a entire new album, called The Final Cut. Which it focused on the ''Falklands War'' which had happened recently, and had concerned a lot to Roger. If we talk about war in music, you definitely will know from the very beginning it will be something pretty depressing, and not very up-lifting to say the least. Though, that was not it, depressing albums can be done wonderfully and be a work of art, though this was not the case due to Roger's, already achieved in their previous work, complete domination over the band, not letting any other member interfere in the album's compositions, this leading to Rick's already kick-out from the band, way back in The Wall sessions, however he played, nonetheless, in the following massive tour for it. So just like The Wall, this was really another Waters album, with Pink Floyd(half of it really) as a decent backing-band, however, Dave and Nick didn't let Roger make it a solo-effort, since they said that ''they knew songs didn't grow on trees'', whatever that means.

Despite the down's of pretty much everything said before in which Roger was the song-writer and was deeply influenced by the recent war, making a total personal, depressing album, the album as a whole resulted very cohesive and sounds well from start to finish, yes, it is depressing and it obviously doesn't sound like a 'Pink Floyd' album, but still with David apporting some few brilliant guitar solos, it can still be considered a 'Pink Floyd' album as much as The Wall was. The album carries a very slow and gentle, yet emotive, feel, very much in the likes of Side 3 of The Wall, with the exception of the one-song that was supposedly to be a single, 'Not Now John', which ironically, was the only song off of the album that sounded out-of-place, since it was rock-headed and featuring the only vocal-duties by David, which really corrupts the whole gentle and slow flow the album was having due to Roger's low-timbre vocals and melancholic melodies, as well as the effective, though a bit excessive, bomb sounds, and of the like, to make it as most war-driven as possible. Another positive factor are the lyrics, while definitely not positive, they're very powerful and meaning, also the already mentioned dark, low-timbre, mood, ends up being very effective for some specific times of your life.

Besides the album as a whole, I would really like to dedicate this review to dear Antoine, a forum member, which really motivated me and was a grandiose music fan, as well as a marvellous person, unluckily never had the chance to meet him personally. He was, surely, the biggest Final Cut fan, he loved it to pieces even if during his life-time in the forum talking with me, I bashed it, of course intentionally in a friendly way, saying it was the most depressing piece on earth. Now I am proud to say I have found a lot to enjoy from this album, the already mentioned calm and tranquil moments are moments which are great to contemplate and listen, and very effective to sleep with, despite the 'war sounds'.

In conclusion to the review, The Final Cut is a good album, while it definitely doesn't stand along their classics (prog-wise), still Final Cut's unique essence, which is a mix of melancholy and depression, plus the essential addition of it being written straight from Roger's heart, is surely what makes this a rewarding listen, and surely what made Antoine a *very* rewarding listen. Lovers of tranquil generally, yet with effective war-themed lyrics, music, this album is waiting for you.

I love The Wall. That albums is among my 10 or 15 favorite recordings of all time. When I learned, years ago, that there was another album that pretty much was a collection of outtakes from The Wall assembled together by Roger Waters, I was clearly interested. I thought the bad press and reviews were exaggerated.

But they weren't. The album is one of the weakest in the whole PINK FLOYD catalogue. At times it gets difficult even to include in the PF catalogue as it's more of a Roger Waters' solo project than a true collaboration with his soon-to-be (at that time) ex-bandmates. The music is similar to that of The Wall but completely devoid of the energy, the impulse, the melodies, the story-telling, and the brilliance of the tracks in the double-disc masterpiece. Here, in The Final Cut, the music sounds repetitive, all songs seem to play in the same time, at the same speed, with the same themes. Roger Waters steals the show but not in a good way: he just obliterates Gilmour's presence, thus killing one of PINK FLOYD's most magical elements, his solos and his outstanding guitar-work. To add insult to injury, Rick Wright was left out of the band so even the keyboard has lost any distinctive touch.

A disappointing follow-up to the masterpiece. The Final Cut by PINK FLOYD was actually one cut too many.

In a perfect world PINK FLOYD would have called it a day after "The Wall" sessions. That would have been going out on top. Can you imagine the outcry if that had of happened, but hindsight is 20/20 and looking back that would have been the perfect way to do it. Instead we get "The Final Cut" that sounds so much like a Roger Waters solo album that I still look at it as such. PINK FLOYD's final two albums both sound like David Gilmour solo albums. It would have made more sense if these last three FLOYD album were released as solo records instead of under the guise of a PINK FLOYD collaboration which none of them really were. "The Final Cut" is very lyric heavy if you will. And I do believe that Waters is one of the best at writing great lyrics, and this is no exception. I find this album very emotional at times, especially when looking at those who have been terribly affected by the war and yet must live on. That of course includes Roger who lost his dad in the war. Interesting that there are many melodies and sounds that seem like they were taken directly from "The Wall".

"Your Possible Past" opens with samples as Roger comes in vocally. It kicks in after a minute as contrasts continue. The lyrics are so emotional as he looks at those who have been changed by the war. "Do you remember me ? How we used to be ? Do you think we should be closer ?". The guitar after 2 1/2 minutes is great. "When The Tigers Broke Free" is pure emotion. Roger has a right to be angry, to be sad,to be broken.

"The Gunners Dream" is Waters again at his best lyrically. Who needs guitar solos and bombast with words like these."After the service when you're walking slowly to the car and the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air you hear the tolling bell and touch the silk in your lapel and as the tear drops rise to meet the comfort of the band you take her frail hand and hold on to the dream". Gulp. "Southampton Dock" opens with strummed guitar and spoken words. It ends with these words "but in the bottom of our hearts we felt the final cut". "The Final Cut" has this swirling melody that comes and goes just like on "Comfortably Numb". The album ends in rather an optimistic and bright but honest way with "Two Suns In The Sunset".

This album sits beside "Amused To Death" on my shelf. Two special and meaningful recordings.

"The Final Cut" is the 12th full-length studio album by UK progressive rock act Pink Floyd. The album was released through Harvest in March 1983. After the hugely successful "The Wall (1979)" album it was expected that Pink Floyd would release another great album in the vein of that album. "The Final Cut" turned out to be a rather controversial album in the band´s discography though. Loved by some and loathed by many. The album is essentially a Roger Waters solo album and in hindsight probably should have been released as such. Keyboard player Richard Wright had already left Pink Floyd during the sessions for "The Wall (1979)" (although he would return for some live session work on the tour supporting the album) stating that Roger Waters ego problems poisoned the atmosphere in the band. Listening to "The Final Cut" it´s very obvious that guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason were also only "session" musicians in their own band on this album. "The Final Cut" is through and through a Roger Waters album. It would be his last album with Pink Floyd.

The album features 12 tracks. If you are familiar with how intense and desperate sounding the Roger Waters led tracks on The Wall sound you´ll have a pretty good idea of how the music on "The Final Cut" sounds. It´s as if the tracks on "The Final Cut" were outtakes (and some of them might be) from "The Wall (1979)" sessions. The problem with outtakes are often that they don´t reach the quality of the original product and that´s also the case with the tracks on "The Final Cut". The quality is as such still high enough and I rather enjoy the album albeit mostly in small doses. Sometimes I´m not too impressed by what I´m exposed to but when some of the songs reach their climax there are great emotions at play and magical moments occur.

The production and the musicianship on the album are of good quality. Roger Waters distinct desperate sounding vocal style has a way of wearing on my patience after a while though but I guess that´s an aquired taste. Upon conclusion "The Final Cut" probably shouldn´t have been released under the Pink Floyd monicker as it doesn´t sound much like a full band effort. While the album has it´s moments it´s not a perfect album and a 3 star (60%) rating isn´t all wrong.

Dark,depressive and often ...helpless - last REAL Pink Floyd album. I remember ,how we waited for new PF album after The Wall was released , and how much we were disappointed by Final Cut. I think, the album isn't so bad, just we waited for something different.

The album sounds as some transition work between The Wall and Waters solo albums.In fact, you have there everything you are waiting from good PF album: melodic songs,guitar solos, perfect sound, Floydian atmosphere. The main difference is I think the music there is too dark,too slow and too depressive (even for Waters era PF).

Because of that all album sounds a bit bulky, not focused, or even heavy depressed. You can't help. No-one can help. It just like the end of the world. And the music is enough monotonious as well.

For me, this album is something in between of great PF albums ( WYWH,DSOTM,Animals) and Waters best solo albums. Strong 3,5.

'The Final Cut' falls on the wrong side of depressing. Whilst 'The Wall' can be forgiven for it's dark, cynical nature because of it's operatic qualities, this album has no such excuse. It isn't a show. It's simply a very unhappy, dingy, single album. And David Gilmour has a point when he said at the time "If these leftovers weren't good enough for The Wall, why are the good enough now?"

There are some very strong lyrics (as usual) and occasionally emotive music. The concept is war; interesting to experienced listeners but not really something I can relate to. The sound effects are abundant (again, as usual) and add to the storyline, but not the quality. And the singing is often cringe-worthy; it's out of Waters' range. Plus Mason's drumming here seems to be as unenthusiastic as Gilmour's guitar playing. No musician on this album actually seems to care, other than the "Jolly Roger". It's hard to think of what else to say about this album, other than that it is exactly in the same vein as The Wall, just a bit worse.

Now look! I had completely forgotten to review The Final Cut!

One of the most fascinating things about Pink Floyd is that even though almost all of us love them, the list of preferred albums is very different for each individual. You might even find yourself defending very contrasting views about a particular album with people that you usually share a similar taste with.

For me, that's only another indication of the diversity, uniqueness and versatility of this band. There are so many layers to be found and appreciated in their work that everyone seems to pick and discover other ones. So it's pretty safe to say that the only consensus about The Final Cut is that it's more of a Waters' solo album rather then a Pink Floyd album.

Richard Wright had left the band and his absence is clearly felt. Musically it's as if an entire dimension of the Pink Floyd sound is missing. Wright's unique taste for texture and arrangements had already been subdued on The Wall, but now there's a giant void marking his absence. Wright happens to be one of my most appreciated keyboard players so I sure do miss him here. A whole classical orchestra is brought in again to fill the gap, but it doesn't entirely succeed.

But it's not just Wright that's gone missing. Listening to this album one wonders how many percentage of the time Gilmour made his appearance in the studio. I believe he has about two or three solos and one vocal here. But when he does join for a shred, he truly shines.

Roger Waters is all over the place obviously, and thankfully he is in amazing shape. I don't think I've ever heard him perform so intensively on the vocals. He certainly hasn't ever since. I also find the song writing very solid here. The album misses the highlights of The Wall, although The Fletcher Memorial Home and Your Possible Pasts come close. But most of the album doesn't focus on songs but rather on the narrative style of music. It's that aspect which makes the album truly unique and appreciated. I also enjoy the grave mood of it, and I'm not surprised it's a favourite of the Anathema boys.

Amidst all the polemic surrounding this album, I find myself in rather neutral ground. It's just the kind of album I simply seem to forget all about. So forgetting to review it is quite symptomatic.

Roger Waters "laid a brick" when he patched these "leftover pieces" together in recording sessions that effectively "Walled" himself off from the other members of his own band. Had this been a Roger Waters solo album, we would have known to expect his dour paranoid outlook to completely drain any spark of life from the proceedings. But he was putting the name PINK FLOYD on this album. As such, the other band members should have been allowed to counter-balance his excesses.

Where is Richard Wright on this album? Oh yeah, Roger did away with him during the recording of The Wall. Richard's not even on this album!

Where is Nick Mason? He's out right now. Roger criticized his drumming and he's really feeling self-conscious about it!

Where is David Gilmour? Oh, he tried to contribute ideas but they were considered "interference". He finally walked out with the retort "whenever you need a guitar solo, call me". Don't worry, he wouldn't be needing many of them. Four perhaps? And they would be shorter than usual anyway. And Roger will fade then in and out, mix them up and down whenever and where-ever he feels like it anyway.

OK, now that we know why 75% of the band is either mailing it in or completely missing in action, who are all these other people? They are the session musicians who do whatever Roger Waters says whenever he says to do it!

Of all the Pink Floyd albums, this is the only one in which Roger Waters gets credit for writing every song. Of the 12 songs on this album, only one is graced with a vocal from David Gilmour.

The album cover says it well. The Final Cut is "A Requiem for the Post War Dream by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd". So it seems Roger finally got what he wanted: the total and utter domination of Pink Floyd. And he reduced the band's dynamic range to a dull thud in the process.

Diary of a Madman? No, it's just The Final Cut!

After a complete turmoil where Richard Wright finally called it a day, Roger Waters was now in complete control over every aspect of Pink Floyd's work. With David Gilmour and Nick Mason functioning almost like session musicians, the idea for the next concept album began to take shape in Waters' mind and grew into the nightmarish voyage that is The Final Cut. Logically there's just no way this project could have been merely as good as The Wall or anything that came before it. After all, this album was originally based on the left-over material from The Wall-sessions. But even if everything spoke against anything worth a while coming out of Roger Waters' ego project, the final product was a surprisingly effective little rock opera!

Based around the concept of anti-war, Waters' lyrical content explored what he considered to be a betrayal of British government towards its own servicemen. Of course it's easy to dismiss the story as just another one of those "Waters having daddy issues"-kind of concept albums, but then you're definitely missing the bigger picture here. World War II is only functioning as a premise to the story that's suppose to promote an idea of a post-war dream that felt like something important to fight for. The post-war dream implies that victory would create a more peaceful society for everyone and no longer would there be a reason to resort to war, wherever a dispute occurs. Let's get together, win this war, and make sure that future generations will remember that war is never a solution.

Many people never cared to understand the underlying themes of this album and instead plainly assumed that it was just a continuation of the previous release, due to rather obvious similarities to The Wall. One of David Gilmour's main complaints about the album's content was the inclusion of the previously rejected material from The Wall sessions. He was even quoted saying--"If these songs weren't good enough for The Wall, why are they good enough now?". To me, that's certainly not the issue mainly because these tracks merely didn't work as a part of that story arc. When the material was rearranged and put in it current order then new concept created a completely different story progression.

Everything from the packaging design to the, for once, very passionate sounding vocals by Roger Waters made me fall in love with The Final Cut ever since I heard it for the first time, almost a decade ago. The music itself might not seem that varied, with only a few sections featuring a tenor sax or a guitar solo, but it fits the concept like a glove without ever making it all feel over the top or pretentious. It's a dark little tale that doesn't give the listener a moment of rejoice and it seems to be asking a lot of an average-Pink Floyd fan since not many have managed to embrace the sheer power behind this album.

Musically this whole release is masterful from the beginning and right to the very end, with a minor exception of the completely uninspired rocker called Not Now John. This track just doesn't work well in contrast to the rest of the album and I generally prefer to skip it by going from the album's title track and right to the mighty Two Suns In The Sunset. If you thought that the ending of The Wall seemed very dark, then The Final Cut will literally make you want to weep for the stupidity of the human race. That's something only a masterpiece of music should be capable of doing.

Am I weird for enjoying The Final Cut more than The Wall or do I deserve a more severe punishment for considering it to be the best Pink Floyd album of all time? Please remember that this opinion comes straight from the heart of a very passionate prog rock fanatic. Hopefully my review will make more people interested in visiting/revisiting this essential piece of progressive rock music. I wouldn't want it any other way.

***** star songs: The Post War Dream (3:00) The Hero's Return (2:58) The Gunners Dream (5:04) Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert (1:19) The Fletcher Memorial Home (4:10) The Final Cut (4:53) Two Suns In The Sunset (5:17)

**** star songs: Your Possible Pasts (4:21) One Of The Few (1:26) Paranoid Eyes (3:49) Southampton Dock (2:05)

*** star songs: Not Now John (5:03)

A bad album? Heck no! Different then the rest of Floyd's catalog? Heck yes!

What Waters (not Pink Floyd) created here is a very personal, emotional and dark album. The lyrics are the best he has probably ever written and the few moments Roger lets Gilmour shine, he really shines.

Musically, it's the weakest Floyd effort but the lyrics in my opinion make up for them close to completely. I don't even have his political views and I think the lyrics to this album are amazing.

It's not a prog album, I'll go ahead and say that, but it is a journey when one listens to it with complete focus and those who get it, I feel happy for you.

Don't let the low rating fool you, it's a great album. Four stars.

This is one of the most controversial albums of all times. Looking at previous reviews you can see every rating from 1 to 5 stars, and this partially reflects the position that some Pink Floyd fans took in favour of Waters or Gilmour and the rest of the band when they disbanded and this is something that can easily influence the judgement.

It can be considered a follow-up to The Wall, even if it seems that some songs were already written at the time of the Animals tour. Surely it contains, enhanced, all the personal problems that were affecting the personality of Roger Waters. Yes, the album is dedicated to his father, but there are some references to Syd Barrett hidden in the songs. Not many people knows that Barrett was orphan as well as Waters and some of the situations described on The Wall and on The Final Cut are speaking of Syd instead of Roger only.

Let's go to the music now:

"The Post War dream" opens with the usual gimmicks and the music in introduced by an explosion. This song is about the Falklands war which represented the end of the "post war dream": the illuson that after the 2nd world war the world would have been a better place. "Tell me why was Jesus crucified?" can be intended as the death of his father for the post- war dream that Maggie has destroyed sending the British navy to fight against Galtieri's troops. Of course Maggie is Margaret Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" who was prime minister at that time. From a musical perspective this is just an opener.

"Your possible pasts" is the first almost-country-acoustic-guitar ballad of the album, but in the middle it contains the first Gilmour's solo, too. Here the absence of Rick Wright is clearly perceived. There are almost no keyboards, at least not what we were used with on previous PF albums including The Wall, and this absence is anhanced by the "olographic sound" that was the technical characteristic of the album. The concept is interesting. "They flutter behind you, your possible pasts". If you look at the past starting from the present, forgetting what the past was, it's the same as looking to the future. There are possible (potential) pasts as well as possible futures.

"One of the few" is a short interlude, but the musical theme will be recurrent since now on. The acoustic guitar makes me think to Set The Controls of The Heart of The Sun.

"The Hero's Return" contains the first direct reference to Waters' father. Who speaks is the teacher of The Wall: "Trying to clout these little ingrates into shape". It's an autobiographical track, even if Waters declared in an interview that the teacher who inspired the character was not really so bad. After the rocky part, the acoustic coda mentions "the gunners dying words on the intercom". If you remember the gunner's death in The Wall...

"The Gunner's Dream" is one of the best moments of the album from a musical point of view. The sax solo that starts over the waters' cry is probably the best thing of the whole album. The chords sequence is not trivial as on many of the album's tracks. The key of this song is

"And maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control And everyone has recourse to the law And no-one kills the children anymore"

The recourse to the law is what one can do against an injustice when in democracy. Here Waters intends totalitaristic regimes like Argentina in those years, as well as in war, where no law exists or the evil guys are the law.

Another acoustic interlude with "Paranoid eyes" just to be introduced into one of the main themes of the concept with "Get Your Filthy Hands Off Of My Desert". There is a joke with the words "Desert" and "Dessert". Just few notes and few words to say "And Maggie over lunch one day took a cruiser with all hands apparently to make him give it back". This short song fades into "The Fletcher Memorial". From a musical point of view this is similar to "The Trial". The interlude is grotesque. The powermen are children, "incurable tyrants", like the Valhalla Gods were in a Monthy Phyton movie. Sarcastic.

"Southampton Docks" is lost in the space and time. It starts with "They desembarked in '45", but it's where the Falklands' fighters desembarked and 45 may be their number. The musical theme is the most recurrent. is "she" Waters' mother or just a character?

"The Final Cut" is back to our days. It speaks of media, majors, star system... "Open the priesthole and if I'm in I'll tell you what's behind the wall" or "There 's a kid who had a big hallucination making love to girls in magazines" or again "And if I show you my dark side will you still hold me tonight" In those sentences there's almost all the story of Pink Floyd since Barrett to now. With a so big attention to the lyrics, the music in not the best of the album.

"Not Now John" is the concept's closure act. There's one more song after, but it's a sort of "end titles". In brief, we defeated the Japaneses in the world war and now we have to compete with them form an economical point of view. Then the invective touches the Russian bear, the Argentines, no need to worry about Vietnam...The post-war dream is dead, that's all. This is the most rocky track on which there's also the only vocal performance of David Gilmour, together with a not bad guitar solo.

The last track "Two suns in the sunset" is imaginative. We are in the years of the Reagan's space shield. Many people is fearing for a possible nuclear war. One year after Waters will take part in the soundtrack of a cartoon produced by Greenpeace: "When the Wind Blows", about the long death of two innocent survivors to a nuclear attack. The imagine of a "sun is in the east even though the day is gone" viewed in his car's rear mirror is incredibly strong. The song is another slow acoustic, but it's one of the album's best in terms of songwriting.

It's true that it's mostly a Waters solo album, but this is just the conclusive act of what was started with Animals. The lack of Wright, and keyboards in general is the weakest thing of the album and what gave to the fans the impression to be listening to something else than a Pink Floyd disc, but if we forget that it's branded Pink Floyd and try to rate it independently, I think it can deserve 4 stars for the lyrics and 3 for the music, also considering that no many good things were in the music shops in 1983.

I can't say that's non-essential because it's the foundation for Waters' following works but I understand that not everybody can like it, so I roud it "odwn" to 3 stars because I can't sy that it's not good. Not the Pink Floyd best, maybe the worst but not bad at all.

I remember when this album came out and Rolling Stone Magazine gave it a five star review. So I went out and bought it. Though I could sense the genius and power of the story being told by Roger Waters about his father's World War II service--and I cannot fault the pristine production, the album seemed to lack something. Cohesion. Flow. Floyd's usual walls of synths. The album was stark and in your face--and all Waters. Yeah, Gilmour got to play two awesome solos, in "Your Possible Pasts" and "The Fletcher Memorial Home" and there are tons of the usual recorded effects/incidental tracks that have by now become an integral part of the Pink Floyd sound and even expected from the band--but by now they're all familiar and old. And a lot of the melodies and catchy instrumental riffs are old--borrowed from previous albums. Still, this is by no means a bad or even poor album. It's just a bit . . . whiney.

Favorite songs: "The Hero's Return" (2:57) (9/10); "Two Suns in the Sunset" (5:15) (8/10), "Your Possible Pasts" (4:23) (8/10), and; "Not Now John" (5:02) (8/10).

3.5 stars rated up for amazing production and powerful story.

On Armistice Day, it is perhaps appropriate to write a review of this, the last Floyd album recorded with Roger Waters, but what is, of course, a Waters solo album in all but name, with Gilmour and Mason adding their parts in a bit of a huff, and the latter even replaced on drums for the final track, Two Suns In The Sunset because "he can't do 7/8 time". Wright had been sacked by the great leader, and he had been replaced by Andy Brown and Michael Kamen, both of whom provided solid keyboard work. It was, in Mason's typically understated manner, "a difficult album to record".

There's the history, but is it any good? Does it deserve the panning it regularly gets? Yes to the first question, and no to the second.

What people have to get is that this is a deeply personal work by Waters, in which he vents his spleen in a rage against the futility of war, the deeply dark and depressing reality of the state Britain was in at the time (1983 saw Thatcher effectively win an election by bashing the Argies in the Falklands War - many forget just how unpopular she was with unemployment at record levels), and, in fact, bemoaning the quality and decision making of virtually every single elected politician in the Western World, most of whom Waters confined to The Fletcher Memorial home, a madhouse for the crazed and powerful, alongside history's worst dictators.

Musically, there are some genuine highlights. The Hero's Return is a deeply moving and gentle paeon to the fallen. Kamen's piano work and Raphael Ravenscroft's sax on The Gunner's Dream eloquently bring Waters poem to the corner of a foreign field to sad and bitter life. In the same vein, Southampton Dock was refreshingly bought to life live in the Waters comeback live tour. Deeply moving and poetical, I love this track, and it serves as an introduction to the title track, which is beautifully understated throughout, and features a good Gilmour solo and more lovely orchestration.

The aforementioned Fletcher Memorial Home does bring Gilmour roaring into life with a trademark guitar burst one last time with his old sparring partner, if only, I suppose, to prove he could still do it. I actually think this is one of Waters' finest moments on record. The lyrics, ranting against these egotistical, mad, and inadequate leaders continues to have a profound effect on me, and the clever mix of subtle symphony and classic Floydian rock works extremely well.

The weakest track is the one that, musically, is out of kilter with all else, and an effort, I suppose, to bring some commercial success or attention to the album. Not Now John fails on almost every level. It's not good enough as a commercial piece of music, and the impact of the single was somewhat deadened when the lyrics had to be changed from "**** all that" to "stuff all that".

The highlight of the album, to me, is the final track. Two Suns In The Sunset is a gorgeous piece of music, written to reflect the fear that Waters, and, indeed, many of us in 1983, had regarding a potential nuclear holocaust. It is easy to forget just how much this issue was alive at the time. The Labour Party fought a large part of their election campaign on nuclear disarmament, and Thatcher & Reagan were all for "bashing the commies". The acoustic guitar work is superb, at last the drums come to life on the album, Brown contributes some great organ work, an excellent sax solo, and these combined with genuinely frightening sound effects when "she blows", create a very memorable track.

This is not the album you put on for a good old knees up at a party. It is not the sort of album that you put on in order to uplift your spirits. What it is, though, is a deeply thoughtful and moving testimony to one man's long dead father, other fallen heroes, the question as to what exactly they had fought for when all was falling apart in the modern world anyway, and the sheer and utter waste of it all.

But for Not Now John, this album would merit five stars from me. As it is, four stars. An excellent album and one that really deserves a thorough re-evaluation.

Although the critical consensus is that The Final Cut falls short of the standards of Pink Floyd's classic albums, I've actually always thought it was a cut above The Wall, which by comparison is an extremely self-centred and self-pitying work. (By comparison, the lyrics here are a bit more outward-looking, empathetic, and compassionate - why, Waters is even able to feel sorry for the abused teacher from The Wall.) Because the themes and lyrics once again pay attention to the world outside of Roger Waters' head, the album does a better job of reclaiming some of the social commentary and vitriol which spiced up Animals.

The lack of Richard Wright and the diminished role of Nick Mason results in an intriguingly sparse sound, and its intriguing soundscapes and carefully constructed arguments about the destruction of liberal Britain result in an album which at least more original and satisfying than the empty hard rock cliches of The Wall. Recommended for fans of movie soundtracks, especially considering the more significant role played by Wall collaborator and regular soundtrack merchant Michael Kamen.

Indeed, I'd tend to regard it more of a Waters/Kamen solo collaboration than a true Pink Floyd album, and would suggest listeners coming to it fresh do the same: it'll help you put away some of the Floydian expectations that the album will simply not deliver on, and it sort of sits nicely in that swathe of dark 1980s ruminations that Kamen scored such as Brazil, Edge of Darkness, and the movie version of The Wall.

The most miserable of all Floyd's albums. 'The Wall' sounds like a picnic by the seaside with ice-cream and wafers compared to this. Here, it's pretty much Roger Waters by himself at the helm, happily guiding the Pink ship kamikaze style into to the heart of the sun... with no possible point of return.

The good news is that the lyrics are the best he ever put down on paper. In particular 'When the Tigers Broke Free'. That's Tiger Panzers - not the stripey animals.

It's heavy going throughout, but sounds straight from the heart and honest. There's not so much Dave Gilmour on this recording, as he was in a huff and had just about had enough of Roger by this point. Rick Wright was already sacked and Nick Mason does what Nick Mason always did - played solid but unspectacular drums. 'The Final Cut' was clearly the sound of a band imploding.

Why the 5 stars then?

It's the intensity of the lyrics. Overseas listeners won't get the malignant discomfort felt by citizens of the UK towards Margaret Thatcher in the 80's. 'The Final Cut' is a very British orientated recording. The catastrophic decline of shipbuilding, Coal mine closures, greed is good, smash the poor and... in particular, the Falklands fiasco in 1982.

'Not Now John' sums up the UK very well in the early 80's - replete with continual expletives which must have had DJ's praying that they'd put on the listener friendly 7" version for radio exposure. This is the only uplifting part of the record which is guaranteed to have Floyd fans singing at the tops of their voices.

There's also lots of sound effects within, which I'm always a big sucker for, particularly the pub scene in 'Paranoid Eyes'. which has lots of clinking beer mugs and mumbling patrons.

'The Final Cut' is a beautiful, poetic album, lyric heavy and not a happy listen at all. Where it gains most points is in the fact that this Floyd album actually conveys a meaning and a message that many people in Britain were in sympathy with at that time.

Probably Waters finest hour as a solo artist. Even if the album was released under the Pink Floyd banner, the other members had little or no imput at all concerning the making of this work. It also sounds a lot like a continuation of The Wall, but again that LP - even if it was basicly another Waters concept - did sound a lot like a Pink Floyd record, thanks mainly to a bigger presence of Gilmour and Wright. Wright´s contribution to the trademark PF sound has been long underrated, and yet he was responsible for much of what we came to know and love as the music of this legendary band. But he was sacked from the band since the completition of the previous disc, so it was all down to a trio. Pehaps even less than that. Both Gilmour and Mason are underused here (the latter a lot more than the former, though).

This is not to say that The Final Cut is a bad record. It is not. In fact, as I mentioned before, it may be Waters grand work after The Wall. Not an easy listening album, it still struck chord within the public at the time. In fact, it so attuned with the period (Reagan and Thatcher´s politics, the cold war, the Falklands, etc) I think it difficult for anyone who hasn´t lived through it to fully understand the concept. And as the times changed, it was also quickly forgotten. But not before it topped the charts and got some raving reviews (Rolling Stone calling it a masterpiece when it came out). But again this is a totally uncharacteristic album: there are very few moments when it reminds of the band that made such colaborative works like The Dark Side Of The Moon or Wish You Were Here. In fact, only Not Now John - the only track sung by Gilmour - can be said had enough familiar elements to make it recognizable as a Floyd´s tune to anyone but the hardcore fan.

If you liked The Wall, then chances are that you might enjoy this album very much (although the word enjoy may not be fitting for such bitter and angry work). Michael Kamen´s arrangements did improve the songs a lot and - along with the occasional Gilmour excellent, blistering guitar solo - does make the music quite worthwhile (something Waters often lacked on the following solo output). I liked, even if it took me several spins to fully understand and appreciate the music. Highlights are Your Possible Past, the title track and the aforementioned Not Now John.

Rating: 3,5 stars.

"A milestone in the history of awfulness" was how one reviewer greeted this 1982 release from prog titans Pink Floyd. And it's hard to disagree. Basically a selection of re-heated leftovers culled from the same sessions that produced the infinitely superior 'The Wall', the aptly-titled 'The Final Cut' would prove to be the final nail in the coffin of Roger Waters doomed relationship with his fellow band-mates and the last studio album featuring both Waters(bass, vocals) and David Gilmour(guitar, vocals). Essentially a Waters solo piece, 'The Final Cut' is the most un-Pink Floyd of Pink Floyd albums, a slow, gloomy, tedious collection of angry polemics railing against a multitude of subjects ranging from the then state-of-the-nation, Margaret Thatcher's iron rule and the bloody Falkland's conflict. Waters wrote the entire album bar a couple of tracks grudgingly co-written with Gilmour, and one look at the the credits on the album's back sleeve, which reads: "written by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd", tells you everything you need to know about the crumbling intra-band relationships. With keyboardist Richard Wright fired in the aftermath of 'The Wall', the focus here is less on melody and music and much more on Waters strained lyrics and wordy compositions, a style loathed by Gilmour who sincerely believed that if the songs weren't good enough for 'The Wall' then why should they be good enough for 'The Final Cut'. Indeed, it's a miracle an album actually got made. Despite the oppressively maudlin tone however, the album would still prove popular on both sides of the Atlantic, showcasing Pink Floyd's enduring worldwide popularity, though many agree that it was probably more to do with the success of 'The Wall' than anything else. When asked about the album Gilmour usuallY reels off a terse trademark answer: that there are only three good songs on the whole album, 'The Fletcher Memorial Home', the title-track and 'When The Tigers Broke Free', though in truth there is very little here to set the pulse racing, even for the most die-hard of fans. In the aftermath of the album's release Waters would quit the group, kicking off a messy period of legal action over who actually owned the Pink Floyd name, with the bassist claiming in a typical fit of egocentric grandstanding that the group could not carry on without it's main writer.The remaining duo of Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason would eventually win, and the Pink Floyd story would continue with mellow soft-rock of 1987's 'A Momentary Lapse Of Reason' and 1994's semi-decent 'The Division Bell'. However, as the name would suggest, 'The Final Cut' would prove to be the end of an era, showing that even a group as enormous as Pink Floyd can eventually run out of creative steam. The last two album's - which coincidentally featured a returning Richard Wright - are hardly classics, yet they seem positively inspired when compared to the dreary doom-mongering that clouds what is surely the least-accessible and least-loved Pink Floyd album. 'The Final Cut' indeed.

STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012

At the time I bought this on cassette, Roger Waters had left the band and it seemed as though Pink Floyd had come to an end as dramatic as the topic that this album deals with: War. At the time, I had become a 'must own everything' fan of the band, so I had a good scope of their career. And for a career that was full of odd and odd-man-out albums, this one may be one of the oddest. That is because this is more like a Roger Waters' album featuring Pink Floyd, or at least two other members of the illustrious band (keyboardist Richard Wright was out). Waters wrote and sang every song except 'Not Now John', the only song that features David Gilmour's vocals. This is also a concept album similar in vein to 'The Wall' with background voices, sound effects, shuffling footsteps, an orchestra, and a collection of songs related to post-war Britain and leading up to the 1983 present. Indeed, it was intended originally to be part of 'The Wall' story.

This is a special album because of its very different and very particular conceptual approach. For some it may not be an album that's easy to get into, but even back in my junior high school days I could feel there was something wonderful here and a couple of decades later I realized that this album was sadly missing from my CD collection and I purchased it and listened to it again with pleasure.

One thing I love about Roger Waters is his vocal abilities. I believe there are singers who have the skill to hit the notes with great power or subtly and who have a dynamic range. People like Geoff Tate, Rob Halford, Bruce Dickenson, Ronnie James Dio (RIP), Jon Anderson, and Ian Gillan are singers (or at least were in their good years, it might be said). The word 'vocalist' I would ascribe more to people who may not have the same talent as a gifted singer but who make use of their voices to create drama and effect. People like Peter Gabrielle and Denis Belanger of Voivod suit the vocalist appellation. Roger Waters has a unique way of screaming, whispering, and singing long notes (that faulter) that add effect to the song rather than detract from it. He can enunciate clearly and emphasize words sharply or holler just outside the edge of his range. He vocals are often charged with so much emotion that the message comes across much more clearly than if he sang like Geoff Tate or Jon Anderson. And since Mr. Waters' vocals carry us through the album, the whole emotional range that he wants us to feel is the vehicle on which we ride.

But let's not forget the rest of the band, including the background singers and orchestra. There is so much featured here in the compositions that the band Pink Floyd can almost be forgotten at times. It takes a couple of Gilmour's solos, like in 'Your Possible Pasts' and 'The Fletcher Memorial Home' to remind you that there is other talent here that can pull at your emotions too. And what solos! David Gilmour is not about flash and speed. He solos straight from the soul. Speaking about solos, (with apologies to saxophonists everywhere) I am not a big fan of the instrument, but the sax solos on Pink Floyd albums are ever as emotive as the guitar solos. 'The Gunner's Dream' and 'Two Suns in the Sunset' feature magnificent solos by Raphael Ravenscroft (cool family name).

There are lines in the lyrics that reflect sadness, despondency, desperation, lost hope, loneliness, fear, cynicism, sarcasm, and humour. The lyrics, 'No one kills the children anymore,' and 'And you'll never hear their voices,' followed by two children screaming, 'Daddy! Daddy!' in the song about nuclear holocaust never fail to put a stinging lump in my throat and contort the muscles in my face, particularly after having become a father to two small children. I shouldn't listen to these songs while riding the train to work. The nuclear holocaust song, 'Two Suns in the Sunset,' speaks so serenely of the experience: 'As the windscreen melts and my tears evaporate, leaving only charcoal to defend''. Such a difference from the violent lyrics that depict nuclear war in lyrics by the contemporaneous thrash metal and speed metal bands.

This is an album that I usually have to listen to from start to finish. I can't seem to just play a track or two most of the time. It's interesting to note the story and drama behind the album. This started out as tracks that didn't make 'The Wall', and David Gilmour, who was very much in disagreement about the album, was noted as saying, 'If these songs weren't good enough for The Wall then why are they good enough now?' In fact, though the songs were meant to be part of 'The Wall' story, the outbreak of the Falklands War prompted Roger Waters to rewrite the album as a criticism of war. There's been a lot said against this album but I think it's a brilliant piece of work and a rare gem among the millions of rock albums out there. Roger Waters claims his singing was poor but I feel it really captures a lot of emotion, much of which is rather depressing, but in that way I think it's very realistic given the topics of the songs. This is not really Pink Floyd but it is an incredible album.

On March 21, 1983 this LP hit the shelves and, right out of the chute, the album's mundane cover leaked hints that some kind of Floydian slip was afoot. When one is dealing with this highly influential band's contributions to modern music in general one cannot overlook the importance the initial impact the visual art they chose to beckon the potential listener inside with had on its eventual acceptance. Take a gander at the iconic covers for "Animals" or "Dark Side of the Moon" or even go back to the absurd yet irresistible allure of the photo on the front of "Ummagumma" and tell me that those images didn't grab your attention in a millisecond. (I'm speaking to those "of age" who first saw them in a record store, of course.) But, instead of relying on Hipgnosis (the folks that designed their previous covers) to dazzle and entice, Roger Waters took it upon himself to do to the decorating. While I've since learned that the solemn collage he put together is of four WWII medals and a Remembrance poppy, at the time it just looked like something a tenderfoot modern art student assembled out of scraps in a rush to have something to hand in to their instructor. While I'm sure it meant loads to Roger, it meant nothing to me and it certainly didn't look like a Pink Floyd album. I wish that was all that was sub par about the record. Unfortunately, it ain't. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As the old adage goes, "Thou shalt not judgeth a book by its cover" and, inasmuch as I could've, I did not. In fact, I only got around to giving it a concentrated, undistracted listen a few weeks ago so my low opinion of the graphic design had long since faded by then. One of the advantages of reviewing a record three decades after its release is that I can do a little research and educate myself as to what exactly was going on in the band (or what was left of it, in this case) while the album was under construction. I gather that the talented Richard Wright had long since cleaned out his desk at the PF corporation altogether and that both David Gilmour and Nick Mason, while still on the payroll, had developed an acute aversion to being in the same room as Waters' bloated ego so "The Final Cut" appears to be very much a solo effort on his part. Furthermore, I've read that it was initially intended to be an accompanying soundtrack to the cinematic interpretation of "The Wall" until Roger became incensed by his country's involvement in the Falklands War and decided to turn it into a personal anti-war manifesto of sorts. Works of art that have this kind of incubation rarely turn out well and this one is not the exception.

"The Post War Dream" opens the record somewhat meekly with what sounds like an antique pump organ intro and verse. The piece then builds in intensity in order to buoy Waters' predictable angst-filled tirade regarding civilization's ongoing failure to become civilized but it never congeals into a solid composition you can wrap your head around. "Your Possible Pasts" is a parade of somewhat disjointed melodic ideas strung together in an effort to support Roger's pessimistic lyrical content. The song does include a guitar solo from Gilmour but it feels stifled and falls short of achieving his usual high standards. "One of the Few" follows and it's a musically sparse reading of bitter but pointless words. "The Hero's Return" is next and it actually has the appearance of being a cohesive tune most of the time but Waters seems intent on dousing any potential momentum it might gain by insisting on injecting his self-perceived deep profundity into the proceedings. Conceit can be described as something someone acquires when, upon sniffing their own armpits, proclaims the aroma to not only be pleasant but exhilarating. It's my opinion that Roger was, indeed, smelling himself in the early 80s.

The first bright spot arises in the form of "The Gunners Dream." Michael Kamen's pretty and fluid piano playing augmented by soothing strings reassures the listener that at least some thought was given to the music. Waters has one of the most unique voices in prog rock and I love how his passionate high vocal note morphs into Raphael Ravenscroft's tender saxophone ride. All in all it's a poignant song about a soldier's remorse that works on many levels. "Paranoid Eyes" follows and it marks a return to Roger's tiresome, semi-melodic spoken word poetry recited over pastoral but unremarkable instrumentation, leading to an overly-dramatic explosion that begins "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert," a string quartet-heavy number signifying very little. The album seems quite obtuse at this juncture but it continues on. "The Fletcher Memorial Home" is next and my guess is that he's trying to indicate that the tune's vaguely outlined theme is referring to some kind of imaginary retirement abode for incurable, mean-spirited kings and tyrants. It has a morose yet stately score streaming underneath the surface but Waters' self-righteous, judgmental rant poisons any attempt on the part of the listener to be objective. At least David's inimitable guitar gets a few precious seconds of air time and he tosses in some much-needed musical inspiration but it's not nearly enough to salvage this listing hulk.

"Southampton Dock" is a basic, Pink Floyd-styled acoustic folk ditty that manages to evolve slightly thanks to Kamen's piano slipping into the mix but, like so many of the tracks on this album, it eventually goes nowhere. "The Final Cut" (that, sadly, isn't) contains some elements that worked wondrously on their previous record but the budding sprouts of musical ideas that pop up are never allowed to expand and grow into something new and exciting. "Not Now John" is a figurative oasis in a dry expanse of sand dunes in that, finally, a strong rock beat is introduced and used to break up the depression-fest that Roger has headlined so far. Gilmour's sizzling guitar licks and his refreshing voice is a virtual lightning strike out of the blue and his presence briefly lights up the drab scenery. The album closes with "Two Suns in the Sunset" and all I can say about it is that the Pink Floyd I cherish was never this boring. This confounding cut is the most tedious of all and made me glad only because I knew that I was nearing the end. Thank heavens for Raphael's sax solo that saves the record from deteriorating into dust before one's very eyes or there'd be nothing to take out of the changer but a handful of silt.

While Waters' outrage over England's getting into another bloody conflict is admirable, his perspective could've used some fine tuning. We baby boomers in the USA were still trying to heal from our misguided and indefensible involvement in Vietnam that took the lives of over 58,000 of our bravest and best so Roger's fist-pumping, indignant posturing over a skirmish that killed a miniscule percentage of that number (255 of his countrymen, may they rest in peace) wasn't taken very seriously in the states. Yes, it rose to #6 on the album charts due to the band's stellar reputation but I challenge you to hum even half of one song from "The Final Cut." I can't because they're so unmemorable. I can excuse a band for hitting a speed bump and releasing an album of average tunes but it's hard to forgive them when they put one out that doesn't have any real tunes on it at all. Funny thing, I once read that Waters didn't like either "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" or "The Division Bell" because he thought they were too intentionally saturated in the "Pink Floyd" formula. Perhaps a lot more of that precious formula would've kept this one from ending up on the dark side of their resume'. 1.5 stars.

Coming off The Wall, whether it be the third disc or not, Pink Floyd hade to be struggling with the expectations on their new album. It can't have been easy, matching those expectations that had to been there. So, how does it fare? And have the teeth of Time been kind? Though released in the early 80's the sound is still very organic and similar to The Wall or Animals. One might have expected alot more synthesizers and electronic instruments but no, there aren't. As with The Wall the soundscape is very bleak, dark and full of angst. Revolving round themes of war, loss, personal tragedy and the shattering of the glorious future it is not a very uplifting album. Still, I would not call it depressing either. Not by a long shot. Great Britain awoke to a different world in the years after 1945. The dismantling off the Empire and the economic pressures of the 70's, the downfall of industry and Thatcher made the ground shiver. This was not what we saw coming in 1945. The promise of a new world came true, but not in the sense it was meant. This and the loss of his father came to be the theme of The final cut. In some ways a Waters solo album, it proved to be the last of the classic Floyd records. I think the album, in many ways, been treated unfairly and I can see why. It took me a long time getting it straight. I found it both too bleak, dark and similar in tone throughout, lacking the inspiration of any Floyd album of the 70's. I was wrong. I see the light and it shines brightly. Not only am I a lover of all British. I cannot get enough of the Great Britain of the 1900's (and before). So, the fact that the album revolves around a critical time of the nation and the eventual outcome, yet sense of worth, fills me with a certain joyous feeling. Waters and the band manages to put in music the turmoil and emotions of the post war dream, as one track also aptly is titled. I think that The final cut is a very worthy album, full of great, reflective music. Though it may have been intended for The Wall it stands on it's own in every respect. It is a fabolous work, equal to most of the classic albums of the 70's. It's hard to pick out tracks, since the album is constructed in a long motion, where each track folds into another quite seamless. However, I do love "When the tigers broke free" with it's hymn-like sound and Waters wailing vocals. Very emotional indeed. Other tracks that do stand out are "Possible pasts" and "The post war dream": I do, however, recommend you to listen to the album as a whole. It is a splendid, musical display.

I wouldn't call this a terrible album, but it's not a great album either, especially considering the fact that it is Pink Floyd. They have done so much better, even after Roger Water's removed his ego from the room. The problem is not the fact that he had the most say over this album and it's not the fact that the band had lost any vision or anything like that. The problem was that everyone was having a hard time working together as a cohesive unit because there were so many disagreements. Water's got his way for the most part with this album. He wanted to use the songs that were rejected from "The Wall" album for this album and Gilmour couldn't figure out how the songs would work now when they wouldn't work before.

But the album got put together and released, and at least they did a good job of making a consistent album, probably a little too consistent. Waters wrote the music this time and, even though there is evidence of genius here, it's missing a certain something. I think a lot of people could agree with this. What was missing was Gilmour's talent for developing melodies which is what is missing on this album. There is not a lot of development in the songs. I mean, I've listened to this album a lot and there are still only a few parts that stand out or that are recognizable. The music just isn't memorable enough because of the lack of development here. The band only works best when all parts of it are working, and they weren't working well together during the recording of this album.

As I said, there are memorable songs on the album, namely "Fletcher Memorial Home", "Not Now John", and "The Gunner's Dream". These songs would have been better on "The Wall" which had a lot more variety and better use of dynamic, both of which are lacking here. Of course, there is a lot of dynamic here, but it's not used very well like on their previous albums. Regarding variety, most of the songs here follow the same structure and are sometimes quite lifeless and forgettable. There may be other bands that would be praised for music like this, but so much more was expected from the likes of Pink Floyd, so yes they do get judged harshly for this album.

All I know is this album doesn't really do a lot for me because there is so much more that could have gone into it. Except for a few parts, there just isn't the sincerity and heart that was evident in other albums. Even though it is well polished and well produced, I still consider it one of their lesser efforts which I can only consider one other Pink Floyd album that is a lesser effort which is the soundtrack from "More", but at least that one has variety. So, I can only call this one good, but not essential. There are so many other PF albums that are worlds better than this and I can think of a lot of 4 star albums that outshine this one, so I have to stick with 3 stars here.

Now we get to the good stuff. And by good stuff, I'm of course referring to controversy.

As a spinoff that age old cliche, there are two types of people in this world. Those who like Gilmore, and those who like Waters.

As my previous Floyd reviews will mention time and time again, the classic Floyd carried with them a signature sound, a style unmatched by any other band before or since, and after "The Wall", that sound was lost forever with the schism between Gilmore and Waters. So, perhaps, it's best to approach this particular album as the supposed "third disc" of "The Wall". Except it wasn't, because Waters decide to change direction. Which explains a bit of the discomfort between the two.

Gone are the days of jams and guitar solos, and more of the 'image-provoking', as Waters took this album in the direction of an in memoriam for his father, who died in Italy during the second World War. As such, there is a solemness to this entire album, and very few instrumental highlights (something Waters didn't seem to care much for, then or since judging his solo work).

So perhaps looking at this album through a story-telling aspect, a concept album, much like "The Wall". To me, it all makes sense. As the Falklands War was raging in Argentina, tempers flared, much like the Vietnam War to America, and especially when it comes to the subject of war, I have no problem with Waters changing the direction to confront this subject matter. Perhaps it would have been better as a Waters solo album (which I might have argued could've been his best).

The problem with this is album, really, is that Waters, for the first time tries to sound sincere, but his voice just wasn't meant for that. Gilmore's, yes. Waters', not at all, so some of the tracks like "The Gunners Dream" where emotional climaxes are supposed to be met, just don't have the kind of tear-jerking fervor you'd expect from a war movie or some emotional heartbreak scene.

Make no arguments, this is a truly depressing album, discussing a truly depressing, but very important matter. It's not something I'll listen to ever again, probably, but its significance is deeply profound. Perhaps it was the moving images of "The Wall" that tipped Waters to stray away from this traditional Floydian sound of "Dark Side", "Wish You Were Here" and "Animals". But "The Final Cut" was the first glimpse at Waters' solo work, and one could almost imagine what "The Wall" would sound like if it was a Waters solo album. It probably wouldn't be the epic rock opera we see it today.

More importantly, though, this album to me feels like Waters' farewell to Pink Floyd as a sound, never before to be heard from again. I'm not going to say he corrupted it at all, it was just time for him to go his own way and find his own sound, a sound I personally don't think he's found yet, after all these years.

Or perhaps it was the dying sound of the 70's prog that swallowed every band's identity, shedding tradition, sound and storytelling for solo bursts, striking out solo, hitting the top, emerging on top of a mound of carcasses battered and bruised, but victorious. Perhaps it was any number of different outside effects that contributed to the demise of Pink Floyd and the "golden age" of prog. Maybe it was just never meant to be, like the separation of The Beatles. Maybe it wasn't fair of Waters to just take the wheel and go wherever he liked.

But maybe it also wasn't fair of Gilmore to criticize his desire to get this emotional weight of his back, so to speak. But just knowing it was a miserable time for the band trying to put this album out, the strain, the anger and the sorrow is clearly evident throughout. Perhaps that its greatest success, this album, the outpouring of emotion, both literal and metaphorical.

It may not be a great album from a prog standpoint, but it's a very important album, to understand its conception and realization. Now the only thing left to do is wonder if "Pink Floyd", meaning David Gilmore and Nick Mason, can reconcile their demons and bring a return to that classic sound, one last time...

The Final Cut was the definitive breaking point between Roger Waters' relationships with the rest of the band, after the already very complicated coexistence during the recording of The Wall. Waters complained sourly about the minimal contribution of his companions, and on the other hand David Gilmour accused him of wanting to control everything without allowing any kind of dissent. In fact, he had already removed keyboardist Richard Wright from the group. After this work, the legal disputes over Pink Floyd's rights lasted for years and the quarrels between them still persist.

Regarding the material, The Final Cut delves further into discouragement and a deaf look at a humanity that is sinking into armed conflicts because of politicians and the military, already discussed in The Wall. The theme is narrated from the vision of a surviving military man from the Second World War, who ends up working as a school teacher, and that at night, while sleeping, the horrors of war invade him repeatedly. The spatial and atmospheric sounds characteristic of the first works of the group are displaced by the sounds of bombs and missiles, and a deep and heartfelt way of singing, which gives a dark aspect to the entire development.

Despite how controversial it was, I consider it a very good job, both Your Possible Pasts, The Fletcher Memorial Home, and The Final Cut are excellent songs, with melancholic and deep guitar solos by Gilmour, as well as the acoustic chords in Paranoid Eyes, which give an ideal wrap to the song. Another emotional point of the album is the heartbreaking sax of Gunners Dream, which vividly transmits to us what the combatant feels at the time of his death.

It is not a simple album to assimilate, due to the hopeless and depressive emotional content evident throughout all the songs, but in my opinion, on the other hand, that gives it a very redeemable, deep and reflective spirit, which makes it a definitely recommendable work.

After the worldwide success of The Wall, album and film, Roger Waters recalls David Gilmour and Nik Mason (but not Richard Wright) to release what is in fact his first solo album, a requiem on the war, an ideal homage to his father, who died in Italy as an American soldier during the Second World War. Waters wanted to indicate Gilmour and Mason as session men, but in the end he had to accept having them as colleagues in Pink Floyd, a band name that now reflects only himself as the only author of music and singing.

This album is considered a minor work but, in my opinion, it is one of the best of Pink Floyd, when framed as an album of a singer-songwriter. Now I try to explain the reasons.

Side A: 1) Post war dream: 7,75. It's a pity it ends after what could have been a very engaging refrain. The slow start with a majestic background grows and then explodes... all very beautiful but without development. It ends too soon.

2) Your possible pasts: 8. This is a real song, with verse and chorus, and a great Gilmour's solo, which remains perhaps the most powerful guitar solo of the album. Very good song.

3) One of the few: 7. This short piece is basically a connecting fragment, monotonous, acoustic, but which retains the dark and threatening atmosphere of the previous ones.

4) The hero's return: 7.75. Strange piece, short, tense, it is not known whether a link or a complete song, with a good electric guitar to make the rhythm, and then give in to the acoustic one... but it has little development.

5) The gunner's dream: 8.75. After an explosion comes the first masterpiece of the album, a melodic piece, with the piano, and two explosions of orchestral epic rock, the first with the saxophone.

6) Paranoid eyes: 7+. First piece where the tension drops - it's the conclusion of the first side. Melodically discreet, with a majestic instrumental background like the opening piece, but without deflagration, it retains a light character, dictated by the piano, also the protagonist of the instrumental solo.

Side B: 7) Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert (no rating) Intro with noises of war and then violins

8) The Fletcher Memorial Home: 8. Rock opera piece, with baroque orchestration and slightly cloying moments, but then again comes the overflowing solo by Gilmour to raise the quality of the song.

9) Southampton Dock: 6.5. Another gregarious, connecting acoustic piece. Compared to One of the few, there is no tension in the initial part, dictated by the acoustic guitar, which appears a bit loose; then halfway through the piano, with a slow crescendo that reaches...

10) The Final Cut; 8.5. Second masterpiece of the album, similar for the melodic structure on the piano to Gunner's dream, then the orchestral epic rock moment comes in, with strings and a new wonderful guitar solo.

11) Not now John: 8+. The final crescendo of the album, which puts in rows three real thick songs, especially the previous one and this one, which is the most eventful of the album, with great choruses and an almost funky rhythm.

12) Two Suns in the sunset; 7.5. End with another calm song, and the noise of cars on the road, it seems to see cars go by while eating at the motorway restaurant; However, in the middle there is a rhythm broken by a dark section that embellishes the song.

The Final Cut is an album dominated by the voice of Waters, who alone makes the music, the melody and the trend of each piece; Waters whispers in the verses of the songs and connecting pieces, then heaves into a tragic or desperate lament as the pieces reach climax. Minimal music, reduced to accompanying the voice in the verses, often without percussion to beat the rhythm, only background, together with noises and voices; then an orchestral sound explodes in the climax with the drums, the electric guitar and the strings accompanying Waters' excruciating lament, or an excruciating guitar solo explodes, or in two cases of saxophone, in any case by a slow majestic progress in the verses we move on to an epic explosion with voice and orchestra or with an instrumental solo in the climax phases. The two major pieces are basically melodic pieces on the piano, another long piece is orchestral, two pieces have a saxophone solo. The rest is a narration with the voice accompanied by the acoustic guitar, only to be triggered by the drums and the electric guitar in the crescendo that lead to the climax of the pieces that are real songs.

The final Cut isn't a prog album, It is basically a melodic and orchestral folk songwriting, dominated by the voice of Waters who acts as narrator and orchestra director - and he succeeds in a superfine way, thanks also to the wonderful holophonic sound of the album (we hear his vocals as if he were speaking to us with his mouth attached to our ear) and the solos of Gilmour. There are two absolute masterpieces, and two other "almost masterpieces", and short connecting songs, in addition to the two (one for side) final ballads. Everything flows together to form a rock opera for solo voice, a requiem, which has an added value in the writing of the lyrics, political involved. If the final two ballads had been small masterpieces, and not just cute songs, we would be faced with a true 5-star masterpiece, instead I have to stop at four and a half stars, an "almost masterpiece".

Thanks Rogers for this album. Rating 8,5/9. Four and a half stars.

Review Nº 515

"The Final Cut" is the twelfth studio album of Pink Floyd and was released in 1983. It was originally planned to be as a soundtrack album for the band's 1982 Pink Floyd's film, "The Wall". However, with the onset of the Falklands' war, Roger Waters changed it to be a general critique of war and a direct critique to the Falklands' war, a military action unnecessary to him. So, "The Final Cut" is an anti-war conceptual album, whose lyrics regards as the betrayal of the people, like his father, who during World War II sacrificed their lives in the spirit of a post-war dream. This post-war dream was the hope of a better world. That victory should have brought a more peaceful world, where whose political leaders would no longer resolve their disputes resorting to the war. The album is dedicated to the memory of his father.

"The Final Cut" is their last album to include Roger Waters. David Gilmour and Nick Mason maintained the legal rights for using the Pink Floyd's name. Richard Wright had already left the band after the release of "The Wall". So, the line up on the album is David Gilmour (vocals and guitar), Roger Waters (vocals, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, synthesiser and sound effects) and Nick Mason (drums, percussion and sound effects). The album has also some additional musicians: Andy Bown (Hammond organ), Ray Cooper (percussion), Michael Kamen (piano and harmonium), Andy Newmark (drums) and Raphael Ravenscroft (saxophone). It has also the participation of the National Philharmonic Orchestra.

"The Final Cut" has twelve tracks. The first track "The Post War Dream" serves as an introduction to both the concept and the music. It's a short opening but represents a good indicator of what will be the general mood of the album. The second track "Your Possible Pasts" has a good use of the extreme dynamics technique. It's very powerful yet not stereotypical in any way, but is perhaps a bit too much minimalist on the instrumental parts. The lyrics are good as usual. The third track "One Of The Few" is another tiny song, with a good melody. I like that concept of reusing the melody. It gives the album more of a conceptual feel, something that the album can't get enough of, I think. The fourth track "The Hero's Return" has a good melody and the same goes for the vocals and lyrics. The sound is very much in the same vein of the rest of the album. It leads perfectly into the next track, one of the stand- out tracks on the album. The fifth track "The Gunners Dream" is an emotional well written anti-war song. It's another good track which carries on the sad feeling of the album. It has nice piano playing and a very good guitar solo. This is Waters again at his best lyrically. The sixth track "Paranoid Eyes" is also a good song. It has a nice piano on it and is very smooth and quiet. It's sad, but beautiful. It's a slow and brooding song that shows the disillusionment that a veteran has in the world after the war. The seventh track "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" is a very short song, a kind of a sort of a break that starts with an explosion. It's a quite strange song that is an interlude. It's not bad, but could have been left of the album. The eighth track "The Fletcher Memorial Home" is one of the strongest political songs on the album with some amazing lyrics. It has a great orchestral section and some nice time signatures and chords. It has a great Gilmourish guitar solo too. The ninth track "Southampton Dock" is a song very short, almost half of it is more of a passage into the title track. It's a nice song, again back to the emotional lyrics and that is only played out just by the acoustic guitar and Roger's vocals. The tenth track "The Final Cut" is the title track. It's one of the highlights on the album. It has great lyrics, as usual, related to the previous album. The song starts out quiet, but reaches several climaxes. It has also a great guitar solo too. The eleventh track "Not Now John" is a great rock song. It has a different style, a definite departure from the rest of the album. It's the heaviest song that doesn't fits in with the other songs. It represents the only contribution of Gilmour on the vocals. The twelfth track "Two Suns In The Sunset" is a pleasant piece with a great sax solo, a great memorable riff and some great lyrics. It's mostly a quiet song mainly played on acoustic guitar. It closes the album well.

Conclusion: "The Wall" was personal Roger Waters' bet, and is largely based on Roger's life. "The Final Cut" is also a personal Roger's bet. It's a kind of "The Wall" part two, but it hasn't the creativity and quality enough to be considered equal to "The Wall". Still, it has enough cohesion, consistency and balance, to be considered a good album. I think "The Final Cut" is different due to several things. Richard Wright was no more in the band because was fired by Waters after the recordings of "The Wall". David Gilmour and Nick Mason only participated on the album very few. They were practically two more other guest musicians, especially Nick Mason that no longer drumming on all the tracks of the album. On "The Wall" four songs weren't composed by Roger Waters. On "The Final Cut" all compositions belong only to Waters. The release was exclusively decided by Waters and its concept was also a Roger's project. Thus, "The Final Cut" is more a solo project of Waters. So, "The Final Cut" should never have been realized as a Pink Floyd's album. If it was released as Waters' album, it would be probably considered his best solo musical work. So, 3 stars to this album.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)