#Bird in a gale roger waters full#

It sets the mood perfectly, very subtly garnished around the album to give it that sense of impending doom, but never fully submitting to it. Perhaps a nod to The Wall, there’s also a lot of sonic collaging, cutting up Waters’ speech, telephone conversations, train announcements, and even a shipping forecast in there for good measure. Produced by Nigel Godrich, the trademark Waters growl gets some absolutely lush instrumentation to wander around in: it’s not as obtuse or as grim as A Moon Shaped Pool, for instance, but many of the same ingredients are there: synths buzz and glide, string sections wax and wane, and guitars strum and scream. Touching on life in 2017, I can imagine Waters out of his mind witnessing what’s happening around the world these days: “picture a shithouse with no fucking dreams, picture a leader with no fucking brains_” his grizzled, off kilter American accent snarls on ‘Picture That’.

#Bird in a gale roger waters full#

Not that I’d be able to say anything you don’t already know, as the lives and careers of Waters and the Floyd have been dissected about a million times over the past 40-odd years: if you do want a bit of background to both, I’d recommend Nick Mason’s memoir Inside Out more than anything.Īnyway, I’m sure Floyd fans and Waters die hards alike will be as happy as flying pigs in shit at the amount of activity in each respective camp, and to quote the man himself on Is This The Future We Really Want's brilliantly weird little intro ‘When We Were Young’: “ who gives a fuck, it’s never really over”.Īfter his last concept album, 1992 Amused To Death, which commented on television’s encroaching influence in daily life, especially around the time of the first gulf war, it’s heartening to hear him still with a belly full of fire and a head buzzing full of ideas on ITTLWRW - the voice might falter and wobble a bit more these days, but that anger and appetite are still very much there. Although to be fair, he’s at least on speaking terms with his former band mates these days, and thankfully that means I can leave the rambling essay/ history lesson for another day.

You have to hand it to Roger Waters: never one to shirk from a challenge, and never one to mince his words, he’s picked the exact moment Pink Floyd enter the V&A for the Their Mortal Remains exhibition to put out his first studio solo album in almost 25 years.