A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON

Well, we saw in 1983 what happens when PINK FLOYD let a bitter, acerbic man mastermind an album: it becomes intolerably bleak and self-fixated. So now, four years later, we get to see what happens when a gentler, middle-aged millionaire masterminds a PINK FLOYD album. The result: gentleness, bordering on blandness. The band clearly misses ROGER WATERS, but not as much as ROGER WATERS missed the band.

This album is much more like the early 70s albums in spirit, as one would expect. Slow, spaced-out and languid, the music dominates here over lyrical vision. To be blunt, DAVID GILMOUR doesn't have a lyrical vision, and so those looking for FLOYD-with-a-message will take 'The Final Cut' over this. However, those interested in the music will plump for this. Most fans just wish the two could have been married one more time.

'Signs Of Life' reprises the opening of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' but without the starfield magnificence of the former: this track is definitely earth- (or water) bound. 'Learning to Fly' begins with a searing guitar, but the subject matter (literally, having flying lessons) reveals the shallowness of the subject matter at hand. To my mind it still beats yet another album about the war ... but what's this? 'Dogs of War'? Is GILMOUR trying to out-WATERS WATERS? This track is usually panned by the critics but I have no particular beef with it. 'One Slip' and 'On the Turning Away' are worthy album tracks, but not really up to post-72 PINK FLOYD.

Side Two is where the record excels. Here GILMOUR stretches his guitar fingers. 'Yet Another Movie/Round and Around', 'Terminal Frost' and 'Sorrow' were destined for a GILMOUR solo album, but are infinitely more valuable here, getting the full FLOYD treatment. 'Sorrow' in particular is a treat, the best FLOYD song since 1975 with the exception of C-Numb. A great growling guitar start, and a worthy, if overlong, solo to finish, with a meaningful song sandwiched in between.

Yes, it's as much a GILMOUR solo album as 'The Final Cut' was WATERS'. But gone is the smothering air of dominance. Instead, we see moves back towards democratisation, with the inclusion of WRIGHT (as much as his severance contract would allow). I'd love to have a machine that would somehow graft the best of this into the best of 1979-83 FLOYD and see what happens.

It comes down to this. I love PINK FLOYD as a space-rock band, not a protest art-rock band, irrespective of the brilliance of 'The Wall'.Therefore, what GILMOUR does is inherently more interesting to me than what WATERS does. This album is a fair forgery of a PINK FLOYD album indeed, as WATERS most famously put it. I'll settle for that over another war album from an angry tyrant.