ABOUT FACE

I do prefer Roger Waters when it comes to that old fight 'who's better in Pink Floyd' and The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, released at the same year, is light years ahead About Face.

But we, Pink Floyd fans, at least the reasonable ones, will agree that both contributed to the band sucess (don't you ever forget the great Richard Wright). Not the individual pieces. Saying that I'll not enter this territory anymore.

Gilmour's first solo album, David Gilmour (1978), was a HUGE let down for me, the first spin on my cd player was like: 'wth he's doing???' Cause it's SO unfocused, it's just a guitar player throwing out his ideas, of course his guitar playing is great, as usual, but his writing abilities were lame.

It took me years, literally, to listen to About Face for the second time, I dont like the overall sound in the 80's albums and that is a great wall for me and albums like this one. Today I decided to listen to it properly, and... man, it's not a terrible album... if someone else recorded it, but for a David Gilmour album? No, this is bad...

I understand he tried to just do a Rock record, away from all that 'Progressive Rock' label he had got over the years, tracks like 'Until We Sleep', 'All Lovers Are Deranged', good and simple 80's Hard Rocks, tries that, but, babe, you just can't flee, that's the truth at the end of the day!

Tracks like 'Murder' prove what I'm saying, the good moments are based on his 'prog moments'. Like 'Blue Light' that is something weird that you should look upon, an odd combination of brass arrangements with good keyboards and a killer solo at the end, never thought a combination like that would work, but it does, very much. Another in the same line is 'You Know I'm Right'. The last track 'Near The End' tries to evoke the same feeling, but fails hard and leaves a gap, a disappointing ending.

The ballads are 'cute', but they do nothing for me except bringing the thought that he shouldn't have done them. 'Love On The Air', 'Out Of The Blue' and 'Cruise' prove that.

Away from the whole record is 'Let's Get Metaphysical', an instrumental that doesn't go anywhere, really.

After About Face, David Gilmour revived Pink Floyd and released 2 studio (weak) albums and 2 live (even weaker) albums with the band. Only in 2006, 22 years later, he released a third solo album, the good On an Island. A fourth was released in 2008 with Live in Gdańsk. And it seems his career will end like that, on a low note.