A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON

Considering the bitter, seething, and at points totally inexcusable hostility that existed between the Gilmour and Waters camps which overshadowed - and was exacerbated by - the process of recording this album, you could argue that it was something of an achievement to complete and release the album in the first place. Certainly there isn't much to applaud on a musical level. A Momentary Lapse of Reason is a disjointed muddle, containing instrumental atmospheres which don't go anywhere and seem rather unsure of what atmosphere they're aiming for in the first place, interspersed with soulless pop-prog anthems like Learning to Fly.

Overall, the impression I have is of a dilettante's album: a piece which exists not because the artists behind it needed to create something to earn their daily crust, or because they had any particular artistic statement they wanted to make, but simply because they had all this cool recording equipment lying around and happened to be bored one day. Of course, the process of producing the album was much more laboured than that, but that's part of the reason it's such a disappointment: surely, after fighting so many battles and spending so many months in the studio, Gilmour, Mason and Wright should have been able to put together something a little bit more compelling than this? One for the fanboys only.