ABOUT FACE

About Face was the second solo album by David Gilmour released only a month before Roger Water's The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking. Instead of hurrying his album into production Gilmour would probably have benefited more by postponing the release and improving his songwriting since this is not the album I wanted to hear from anyone associated with Pink Floyd.

This album does offers a couple of interesting tracks like the acoustic guitar driven Murder or the atmospheric electric guitar work on Let's Get Metaphysical but they're not enough to wash away the bittersweet taste left by Blue Light, All Lovers Are Deranged and a few other lesser performances. Just thinking about the terrible videos I saw for these song makes me feel nauseous. I'm sure that this material could have worked in the '80s but it really hasn't aged as well as Gilmour's debut solo album.

Still the biggest problem with About Face is that it goes in so many different directions which all clearly show that the artist didn't know what he was going after with this release. I would have probably liked it better if the album was a flat-out commercial album with a few nice pop tunes. Instead David Gilmour takes up just a few too many agendas which in the end result in nothing worth a while for anybody but his biggest fans.

About Face is by no means the album we all expected from our favorite Pink Floyd guitarist. Fortunately after another 22 years Gilmore finally managed to improve on the formula and deliver another decent solo album!

**** star songs: Until We Sleep (5:12) Murder (4:58) Out Of The Blue (3:36) Cruise (4:39) Let's Get Metaphysical (4:09)

*** star songs: Love On The Air (4:18) All Lovers Are Deranged (3:14) You Know I'm Right (5:04) Near The End (5:43)

** star songs: Blue Light (4:35)