David Gilmour: Live In Gdansk

DAVID GILMOUR: LIVE IN GDANSK (2008)

1) Speak To Me; 2) Breathe; 3) Time; 4) Breathe (reprise); 5) Castellorizon; 6) On An Island; 7) The Blue; 8) Red Sky At Night; 9) This Heaven; 10) Then I Close My Eyes; 11) Smile; 12) Take A Breath; 13) A Pocketful Of Stones; 14) Where We Start; 15) Shine On You Crazy Diamond; 16) Astronomy Domine; 17) Fat Old Sun; 18) High Hopes; 19) Echoes; 20) Wish You Were Here; 21) A Great Day For Freedom; 22) Comfortably Numb.

General verdict: The closest thing to «Pink Floyd at 60» that there is, and what a wonderful thing it is, too.

The only two reasons why this live album is not officially a «Pink Floyd» live album are: (a) the lack of Nick Mason, whose functions here are performed by Steve DiStanislao, and (b) the inclusion of On An Island as played in its entirety, albeit in slightly reshuffled order. Neither of the two factors seems particularly important to me, though. For one thing, Steve is an excellent drummer with a great feel for Floydʼs material, and there is not a single moment on here which would make me go, "oh, this really sucks without Nick"; meanwhile, Rick Wright definitely is here, and his personal touch is very well felt on all of the tracks. For another thing, well, On An Island is conceptually, stylistically, and spiritually just as Pink Floyd as The Division Bell was, which is to say, well, not very much Pink Floyd, but if they slapped the moniker on that one...

...anyway, this is a really stupid and superfluous discussion, I simply had no better idea of how to start off the review. What really matters is that the On An Island tour, which took place from March to August of 2006, opened an entire new page in the life of David Gilmour and, perhaps, even in the lifeline of Pink Floyd as a general concept. Not coincidentally, the first date of the tour was March 7, precisely the next day after David had turned 60; and those who had the luck to witness any of those shows were probably much closer to the revelation that I had to have much later — namely, that it actually takes time for much of Floydʼs material to ripen up to perfection. Or, to put it another way, that Pink Floyd were blessed with the opportunity to write great music when they were young and live long enough to perform it when they got old.

Live In Gdańsk is actually a combined package of two CDs and one DVD; the latter contains much, but not all of the show, and so a better video pick would arguably be Remember That Night, from the May 2006 concert at the Royal Albert Hall. And there are two reasons now why watching this experience makes more sense than just listening to it. One old — Floydʼs fabulous light show — and one new: Gilmour and Wright now visually look almost like a couple of Olympian gods or, at least, demi-gods, with the wisdom of ages imprinted on their faces and reflected in their demeanour to such an extent that I seriously feel some sort of Ancient Greek vibe running through me for all of the showʼs duration.

Nevertheless, even the audio on its own is remarkable. For one thing, never as of yet in the history of Pink Floyd have their recording engineers managed to capture the sound in such utter clarity — even P.U.L.S.E. sounds muffled and distant compared to the sharpness of guitars and keyboards on these recordings. Of course, this is merely a sign of the times (you should expect a 2006 soundboard recording sound clearer than a 1994 soundboard recording), but given that the quality of Daveʼs and Rickʼs playing has absolutely not suffered in the meantime, this means that, for instance, ʽHigh Hopesʼ and ʽTimeʼ flat-out murder their predecessors. Including material from On An Island in its entirety was probably unnecessary — other than showing the world just how much this material means to Gilmour at this period in his life — but even so, and even with almost each song extended by a minute or two to allow Dave more opportunities to stretch out, most of the songs strike harder than their studio counterparts, with even juicier guitar tones and even rawer feeling than in the studio.

The rest of the setlist, too, tries its hardest not to make the whole thing follow in the steps of the 1988 and 1994 records («endure our latest shitty album to be compensated with our greatest hits live»). There is no ʽMoneyʼ (!), no ʽUs And Themʼ, no ʽAnother Brick In The Wallʼ, and no ʽRun Like Hellʼ, though there still is a large chunk of Dark Side, and I guess that the audience would demand their money back without ʽWish You Were Hereʼ or ʽComfortably Numbʼ or ʽShine On You Crazy Diamondʼ. But there are a couple of big surprises: ʽAstronomy Domineʼ makes a welcome return from the P.U.L.S.E. tour, with Dave and Rick having just as much of a blast, and then Gilmour resuscitates ʽFat Old Sunʼ, which, as I already wrote in my earlier review, is quite predictable since it is arguably the one song from his Floyd days which is the closest in spirit to the overall mood of On An Island.

Despite all these goodies, one thing and one thing only makes this tour an absolute must for any music lover — ʽEchoesʼ. In all honesty, while I have always admired the original song as well as the live version on Pompeii, it was not until seeing and hearing what they have done with it on Remember That Night that I came to truly realising its Gargantuan powers. The differences are purely technical: for the first time ever, ʽEchoesʼ is capable of receiving a grandiose sonic treatment, with all the proper amplification and sound mixing that it requires to serve as this mammoth musical allegory of Creation. The climactic «phantom of the Opera» bits benefit particularly well from these technicalities — in the past, you had to strain your imagination a bit to find yourself entangled in this cosmic thunderstorm, but now you are pulled in all by yourself, as the instruments reach sonic heights that were previously only hinted at. The funky dance in the middle, with Rick sending out organ snowballs and Dave chasing them with guitar lightning bolts... the «seagull» ambience... the slow build-up towards the reprise of the main theme... this is now the par excellence version of ʽEchoesʼ for me.

The main lesson to be taken away from both ʽEchoesʼ and the show in general is how to make time work for you rather than against you, which is typically the case with aging rock artists. For a while, it seemed like «Dave Floyd» suffered from the same problem: mixing inferior material from their obviously less inspired, less innovative, less «toothy» records with perfunctory renditions of the old classics that did not really give the impression that their hearts were totally in it — you could almost read the «is it really OK if we do these songs without Roger?» thought on the anxious faces of his bandmates back in the day. But with this tour, itʼs like all those problems are magically gone. Perhaps it was the brief Live 8 reunion with Roger that helped, or, more likely, it is just that when you turn 60, you really have nothing left to prove — and it also goes without saying that some of these songs, like ʽTimeʼ, for instance, acquire a much deeper, much more personal meaning as actual time goes by.

Even ʽShine On You Crazy Diamondʼ, which is not delivered here perfectly (David does some unnecessary tinkering with the vocal lines), ends up cutting deeper than usual, especially if you remember that Syd died on July 7, 2006, right in the middle of Davidʼs tour. All the themes of loneliness, rejection, depression, etc. somehow feel so right now, coming from these people, that never even once, while listening to Live In Gdańsk or watching Remember That Night, did I get the faintest impression of «cash grab» or «capitalizing on nostalgia». On the contrary, this entire tour feels like a healthy and satisfactory profit on an investment made thirty years ago — I will not go as far as to say that these performances cancel out Floydʼs original live shows, because nothing can fully compensate for the lack of creative freshness and youthful edge; but I will say that if there is one band in this world that stands to gain rather than lose from old age, it is Pink Floyd, in whatever shape it comes. 

David Gilmour: On An Island

DAVID GILMOUR: ON AN ISLAND (2006)

1) Castellorizon; 2) On An Island; 3) The Blue; 4) Take A Breath; 5) Red Sky At Night; 6) This Heaven; 7) Then I Close My Eyes; 8) Smile; 9) A Pocketful Of Stones; 10) Where We Start.

General verdict: Quiet, uneventful, but tasteful meditative bliss for all those who have nowhere to go and nothing to do — a fairly apt listen for 2020, as it turns out.

For almost 12 years after the release of Division Bell, Gilmour had largely stayed silent as an artist, and, all things considered, it was a good thing: Division Bell was not particularly bad, but it did show that Dave had few new ideas, and releasing another record of softly moping, mildly depressing ballads would do little good to either Pink Floydʼs or his own reputation. The man had nothing to prove to anybody, no contractual obligations and no need to keep the memory of Pink Floyd in the public eye with new product. This situation alone means that when he re-emerged in 2006 with his next solo album, it actually meant something to the 60-year old guy.

Artistically speaking, On An Island is David Gilmourʼs Double Fantasy (the comparison made even more legitimate by the fact that his wife, Polly Samson, collaborated with him lyrically on a few tracks): an album by somebody who has finally found inner peace and happiness and would like to share them with you. Slow, bluesy, melodic, atmospheric, lonesome, introspective, it has all the trademarks of most of Daveʼs solo as well as Dave Floydʼs products, with one important exception: bleakness and depression have given way to a special blissful melancholy. No longer wishing to get angry or desperate about the evils of the world at large, David Gilmour now drowns his memories of it in the solitary wonders of natural beauty. This is where his passion for flying and sailing comes to be fully understood — the man is a natural-born escapist, and On An Island is arguably his most clearly pronounced statement of escapism ever.

If you know anything about Pink Floyd and David Gilmour, you might probably be able to figure out how the record sounds just by glancing at the song titles — ʽCastellorizonʼ, ʽOn An Islandʼ, ʽThe Blueʼ, ʽRed Sky At Nightʼ, ʽThen I Close My Eyesʼ... clearly, this is going to be a romantic musical fantasy, inspired by all the lonely and exotic places that Mr. Gilmour had had the opportunity to visit by way of globalization and an impressive bank roll. Fortunately, Mr. Gilmour is an accomplished artist, rather than Hugh Hefner or Emperor Tiberius, and On An Island is a lovely and exquisite, if not too memorable, sonic painting, rather than just a standard piece of ornate muzak that you could play in the lounge of a five-star resort hotel without fear that anybody would ever start paying any attention to it.

The link to the old universe of Pink Floyd still stays strong: ʽCastellorizonʼ is a classic Floyd-style opener, with a long and careful buildup of smoky synthesizers, ghostly sound effects, unexpected overdubs (at one point, a rusty lo-fi banjo appears out of the blue in much the same way as the lo-fi acoustic guitar on ʽWish You Were Hereʼ), and, eventually, a blistering assault of deeply cherished sustained guitar notes rising out of the synth waves. The tonality and the guitar tone are reminiscent of ʽShine On You Crazy Diamondʼ, but this is not the music of mourning for a departed friend, this is more like an emotional interpretation of the ocean at night — a nature soundtrack whose expressivity goes far beyond any average soundtrack, but cannot pretend to rise to any sort of tragic heights. This is what you are going to get all the way through — a musical painting of decidedly and intentionally limited ambition as painted by a certified genius painter. Like a Renoir landscape or something.

The good news is that On An Island stands to repeated listens — surprisingly, many of the tracks are slow growers whose calming, soothing effect accumulates over time. At first, you might not be grabbed at all, because the melodies flow by in a lulling, hookless fashion; but once you get used to the slowness and smoothness, the subtle contrast between the verse and chorus melody of the title track — with guest stars Crosby and Nash joining David for that extra feel — reveals the difference between pleasantly sucking in the night atmosphere (verse) and having a romantic epiphany (chorus). Itʼs all small scale, nothing truly shattering in either the instrumentation or the vocal harmonies, but there is a nice dynamic here. More importantly, Davidʼs guitar sounds closer to the listener than it has in ages — one of the worst aspects of all his early solo albums was that the guitar was really deep down in the mix, distant and almost deliberately refusing to be involved in your emotional centers. On An Island might just be the first of Gilmourʼs albums in a long, long time which eliminates that issue by putting the guitar, crisp and clear, on top of everything else. These are far from Daveʼs best solos — precisely because his best solos involve desperate emotional turmoil, which is not the case here — but boy do they sound good.

Not all of the record sounds like a lullaby: just like on Double Fantasy you can come across an ʽIʼm Losing Youʼ to remind you that you do have to earn your right to blissful happiness through suffering, On An Island has stuff like ʽTake A Breathʼ, a mid-tempo psychedelic rocker which disrupts the calm flow with distorted guitars, loud echoey vocals, and sinister lyrics teaching you self-reliance in the face of grim odds: "If Iʼm the one to throw you overboard / At least I showed you how to swim for shore". (Arguably the best thing about the song is its mid-section, eerily reproducing the feeling of being dragged underwater). In a different vein, ʽThis Heavenʼ is a slow blues-rocker driven by a nice little acoustic riff, with a slightly raggedy arrangement that one could expect from some early 2000s indie-rock outfit like the Black Keys (or the White Stripes?); however, it also breaks the immersion effect, and I am not sure if Iʼm really a fan.

In the end, I shall not lie to you about being in love with any of the individual songs; perhaps the closest you can get is with ʽThe Blueʼ, which you could define as "Alan Parsons trying to write his own ʽUs And Themʼ" — with Rick Wright on vocals, a melody that imitates a steady rowing pattern and the most Zen-like arrangement of ʼem all if you are in the mood for it. But then again, I was never deeply in love with peacefully blissful Pink Floyd, such as ʽFat Old Sunʼ — a song that was arguably the closest in spirit to Gilmourʼs vision for this record (and, not coincidentally, resurrected for his tour in support of it); I just thought this music was written in order to be likable, and I dutifully liked it. I dutifully like this album, too, and I certainly think Gilmour has earned the right to make a point with it — at the age of 60, oneʼs chances of capturing the subtle beauty of nature are probably a little higher than making a rousing social statement.

For the record, besides Crosby and Nash on the title track, the sessions feature quite a few notable guest stars, including Phil Manzanera (who is largely responsible for the «iron» sound of ʽTake A Breathʼ)  and Robert Wyatt (whose elegant, but somnambulant cornet playing on ʽThen I Close My Eyesʼ is, unfortunately, somewhat lost here). Nevertheless, the lionʼs share of all playing credits still go to David himself, who plays most of the guitar, bass, and percussion parts — now thatʼs what you call true escapism. In the end, it doesnʼt really matter how much the final product matters to me, you, or anybody else; what is important is that On An Island really produces the impression of a grateful love letter from the artist to his Creator, and this alone makes it fully meaningful even if you do not have the wish to replay it over and over. Then again, I am writing this review in the era of COVID lockdown, and as we all end up stranded on little islands of our own, God only knows how strongly this kind of music could resonate with anybody right now. 

David Gilmour: About Face

DAVID GILMOUR: ABOUT FACE (1984)

1) Until We Sleep; 2) Murder; 3) Love On The Air; 4) Blue Light; 5) Out Of The Blue; 6) All Lovers Are Deranged; 7) You Know I'm Right; 8) Cruise; 9) Let's Get Metaphysical; 10) Near The End.

General verdict: As close to «The (Not So) Great Lost Pink Floyd Dance Pop Album» as it ever gets.

Sometimes I cannot help feeling that, through some subconscious bond, Roger and David had agreed to turn the Eighties into that one decade that would once and for all decide who of the two could sink to the lowest depths of suckdom. It's not that the music they both made on their own was always cringeworthy on its own merits — in all fairness, it was no better or worse on the average than the output of most of their boomer peers. It is simply that both of them lost all traces of that intangible Floyd magic. Using the same ingredients, pursuing largely the same goals, but no longer fed by the spirit that elevated them high above most of the competition in the previous decade. Tired? Disoriented? Losing focus? Perhaps someday somebody will write a good piece of musico-psychological non-fiction about it. In the meantime, here is David Gilmour's second solo album — of which only a very naïve and easily impressed listener could expect to rectify the wrongs caused by The Final Cut.

Curiously, About Face turned out to be the single most dynamic, «lively» record in Gilmour's career (including the Waters-less «Stink Floyd» period). Since the self-titled album had been written and produced in an era when Floyd was still very much alive, simply as a distracting intermis­sion, it was not until the clouds began truly gathering on the horizon that David began to think more seriously of a possible solo career. And a possible solo career, if it were to be a career rather than a hobby, had to take the pop market into consideration — thus, more vocal numbers, more catchiness, more sing-along bits, more toe-tapping, and a few extra tricks to lure the customer in. Put together the general musical environment of 1984 and the usual personality of David Gilmour (the sad, mopey, introvert, but sentimental blues genius guy), and the results are predictably disappointing, though, perhaps, not downright catastrophic.

As a representative example, let us take ʽBlue Lightʼ, the first single off the album. Naturally, it has a trademark Gilmour element — the echoey, delayed rhythm guitars creating that atmosphere of inescapable doom — but on top of those guitars, you have a lively, funky, robotic brass section dominating the song, so that it ultimately sounds like a cross between ʽRun Like Hellʼ and ʽSussudioʼ. Throw in a few cryptic lyrical lines that could have been written about anybody from Margaret Thatcher ("she steals your savings from under your bed") to Gilmour's wife ("under her mantle you feel safe from the cold"), a trendy musical video with dancers a-plenty, and you get an easy recipe for a bona fide hit song — but one for which there is absolutely no necessity. It has neither the dread of ʽRun Like Hellʼ nor the mindless fun of ʽSussudioʼ: it is a clear example of somebody desperately trying to be somebody else, and even though the song still became a minor hit (hey, it's Dave Gilmour, and you can dance to it!), ultimately it becomes just another brick in the (memorial) wall of The Great Eighties' Artistic Self-Humiliation.

Much more true to the artist's heart was the second single, ʽLove On The Airʼ, one of the two songs on the album for which Gilmour had commissioned the lyrics from Pete Townshend — and the lyrics actually sound as if Pete could have written them after a good, solid listen to The Wall, and who could be a better substitute for Waters in terms of bleak misanthropy (and, more speci­fically, misogyny) than Mr. I-know-you-deceive-me-now-here's-a-surprise? The interesting news is that if you do not concentrate too hard on the lyrics, the song might be mistaken for a heart-on-the-sleeve serenade (when it is really about getting out of love). The not so inspiring news is that the song is not very good — quite a flat and simple acoustic progression whose only attempt at a hook is to raise the volume and pitch during the chorus; little wonder, then, that the song flopped commercially, because... well, you couldn't even very well dance to it.

And that's pretty much it: most of the album consists of relatively simplistic and usually over­produced rhythmic ballads, interspersed with the occasional quirky and uncomfortable dance-rocker. The overproduction does a disservice to Gilmour's singing voice, blending it in together with the bombastic percussion and cheap synthesizers; and the pop market orientation does a dis­service to Gilmour's guitar playing, too often downplayed because guitar solos were not supposed to be a big market-driving force in 1984.

Much to Dave's honor, About Face is all about doing an about-face, but rarely about downright losing face — ʽBlue Lightʼ is about as close as it comes to that, and even that song is saved by decent lyrics, imaginative arrangements, and the fact that, at the very least, Gilmour is not trying to dance himself in the accompanying video. It is clear that the man is still committed to his ideals of marrying blues music to psychedelic vision, and no amount of electronics or metallic riffage à la ʽOwner Of A Lonely Heartʼ is going to stop him from honoring that commitment. Thus, ʽUntil We Sleepʼ may start the album with a completely stereotypical Eighties' vibe (big drums, crunchy guitars, electronics), but its intentions are noble — a song about vanity and transience of being, with an epic combination of keyboards, guitars, and dreamy inner-demon vocals. Ten years earlier (or perhaps even ten years later), its arrangement might have been more adequate to those intentions. It's only Fate that commanded it to be recorded in 1984.

Unfortunately, the magnificent list of guest musicians on the album — including both tried-and-true rock horses such as Jon Lord and Steve Winwood, and new stars such as Art Of Noise's Ann Dudley — is squandered away under the circumstances. Likewise, Bob Ezrin, co-producing the album with Dave, was unable to put his classic macabre spin on it, either: About Face can be morose and it can be aggressive, but there is nothing here even remotely approaching the spooki­ness and tension of the better parts of The Wall. Worse, its several moments of social and politi­cal activism almost make Dave look like he'd taken a bit of envy to Roger's Final Cuttisms (ʽMurderʼ has him venting some four-year-late frustrations over Lennon's killing, and ʽCruiseʼ is an ironic take on the nuclear shield), but the man has never had true venom running in his blood, and neither being super-angry nor being super-sarcastic comes as naturally to him as it does to his big-nosed partner. (Also, the more he focuses on lyrical subjects, the less interesting his melodies get — ʽMurderʼ sounds like an old Greenwich Village folk ballad).

In short, this whole thing is as «okay» as it gets, but it is hard to imagine who could be particular­ly fond of it these days: I mean, David Gilmour cautiously selling out for peanuts? If you happen to like Dave's solo career in general, About Face will probably be your least favorite of his albums, just because so much of it is «not him». If you are generally bored by Dave's solo career, it is not likely that the upbeat and poppy nature of so many of these songs will be a great relief: clearly, it would make sense to run to a couple hundred other Eighties artists for these values before you realize that yes, even David Gilmour had a little bit of Phil Collins dormant inside him for all those years.

David Gilmour: David Gilmour

DAVID GILMOUR: DAVID GILMOUR (1978)

1) Mihalis; 2) There's No Way Out Of Here; 3) Cry From The Street; 4) So Far Away; 5) Short And Sweet; 6) Raise My Rent; 7) No Way; 8) It's Deafinitely; 9) I Can't Breathe Anymore.

General verdict: The not-so-lofty beginnings of the Floyd-Lite style. Should go well with antidepressants.

If you want to have a deeper understanding of why Pink Floyd without Roger Waters became just another band of professionals, it makes perfect sense to start with Gilmour's self-titled solo debut. He made this right after the Animals tour, while everybody was taking a break and Roger was writing up demos for The Wall and Pros And Cons Of Hitch-Hiking at the same time — in an effort to gain more confidence and build up a tad of personality, much needed after Roger had pretty much hijacked all the creative seats in the building for himself. No other Floyd members were involved in the process: David played most of the guitars and keyboards himself, with Rick Wills (a former partner of Peter Frampton and a future member of Foreigner) on bass, and Willie Wilson (an old friend back from Gilmour's school days) on drums.

The result was... decent, but underwhelming. Gilmour is a blues musician by trade, which was always fairly evident on Floyd albums, so it is no surprise that David Gilmour can be officially classified as a soul-blues record, albeit with a deeply personal and intimate imprint: one thing Gilmour never cared about is regurgitating traditional clichés, drawing instead upon his own emotional and intellectual experience. This is most definitely a good thing. The bad thing is that none of this experience can push him to the same kind of sharpness and expressivity that he is able to reach while working with Waters. Essentially, this is not just a bluesier, but a softer, smoother, less energetic variant of Pink Floyd, one that tends to leave a much lesser imprint on the soul when it is over — and it would not be that much of an exaggeration to say that the same applies to everything that David has done since parting ways with Waters, whether it was within the formal framework of Floyd or as part of his solo career.

Already the opening track, ʽMihalisʼ, makes it clear that it would be unacceptable on any Floyd album with Waters. A quiet mid-tempo blues groove, for the first minute and a half it does nothing except hammer out its simple, repetitive riff. Eventually, Gilmour lets rip with a bunch of different solos in different keys and with different tones, most of them evoking a sense of sub­dued, inoffensive melancholy — never ever rising sky-high. The whole thing is about as exciting as a romantic instrumental ballad by, say, Brand X. Had Gilmour been Jeff Beck, he might have been able to come up with more technically challenging and substantially innovative licks, but since David is neither a tech wiz nor a «Master of Rare Chords», this is all fairly standard fare, albeit very recognizable as Gilmouresque due to his trademark feel for guitar tone.

The vocal numbers are no different. ʽThere's No Way Out Of Hereʼ is the album's programmatic statement: "there are no answers here / when you look out you don't see in", he declares in his usual friendly, sympathetic, tired, pessimistic tone, backed up by a friendly, sympathetic, tired, pessimistic doubled guitar-harmonica riff. This style would later be repeated many, many times over. It is a tasteful and meaningful style, but when compared to the bleak heights of Floyd, this is a homelier, cozier kind of bleakness, one that might go well hand in hand with a nice warm evening, a comfy rocking chair, a cup of tea, and not a care in the world. It's okay for, you know, coming down — definitely not okay for going up.

In terms of diversity... the album does not even begin to think in these terms, to be honest. A few of the songs rock moderately harder than others: ʽCry From The Streetʼ rides on a fat, distorted, snappy guitar riff which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be a slight variation on ʽI Ain't Superstitiousʼ — but does not really approach the snappiness of something like ʽHave A Cigarʼ. ʽNo Wayʼ (wait... hasn't there just been a track called ʽThere's No Way Outʼ already? talk about a goddamn limited vocabulary!) has a more acutely stated folk-blues pattern and ends up playing like a Dire Straits outtake (although Dire Straits themselves would not really begin to sound like that until a few years later, once Knopfler had exhausted his original bag of inspiration). ʽIt's Deafinitelyʼ (sic!) sounds like Weather Report making a sequel to the coda of ʽSheepʼ — meaning it's fast-paced, jazzy, and about as exciting as a smooth express train ride through pastures of plenty.

The longest song on the album is ʽSo Far Awayʼ, a bit of a fan favorite because it is melodically similar to ʽComfortably Numbʼ — except, once again, it is a song of smooth, tepid melancholy without the kick-in-the-gut aspect that makes ʽComfortably Numbʼ a classic. In other words, this is all dangerously close to «easy listening». It is almost as if all the anger and fury of Animals was too much for David — so much that he decided to make an anti-Animals of sorts, a record for the exclusive purpose of quiet, mildly mournful relaxation. Which, you know, is an acceptable goal, but also a good reason for why so few people today remember about the record. One thing I gotta say, though: the mood of the front sleeve photo is a perfect match for the mood of the album. (As somebody who looks out the window in the last days of March and sees pretty much the same things, I can really feel this drabness).