THE FINAL CUT

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.