LUCK AND STRANGE

Almost the entire album consists of leisurely, calm music with David Gilmour's signature guitar solos. They are especially evident in Single Spark, which sounds like it wasn't included in Pink Floyd's The Division Bell. The same recognizable guitar is present in Between Two Points with the detached vocals of Gilmour's daughter Romany. And the solo in Scattered seems to have been taken from the studio outtakes for Comfortably Numb.

Sometimes the calm is slightly disturbed by more cheerful numbers, like Dark and Velvet Nights, but this is as far from the sounds of Pink Floyd as it is from progressive rock. However, why not? You can hardly expect much drive and energy from the 78-year-old guitarist, but still, the prevalence of slow songs and the slow speed of their performance, even for ballads, is very noticeable. The finale is a pleasant surprise: a repeat of the second song, Luck and Strange, but in an extended version, in the form of a leisurely psychedelic jam, where David Gilmour's gentle guitar intersperses and Richard Wright's melancholic keyboards stand out (which suggests that the jam was recorded during his lifetime, or taken from some half- forgotten studio sessions). I like it better in this version than in the shortened one.