Here it is: another album that\u2019s lurked on the fringes of my musical awareness for decades that\u2019s finally getting the close listen it\u2019s always deserved. <\/p>\n
In early 1978, Pink Floyd guitarist-vocalist David Gilmour was developing a backlog of songs because bassist-vocalist Roger Waters had essentially taken over the band and was in the midst of assembling his magnum opus The Wall<\/i>. Frankly, one of the reasons I was curious to check out this album is that for most of its existence, I have found The Wall<\/i> extremely overblown, and for all of its existence, my favorite songs on it have been the three that had the most creative input from Gilmour (\u201cYoung Lust,\u201d \u201cRun Like Hell,\u201d and \u201cComfortably Numb\u201d). (For the record, I\u2019m among those who didn’t have a problem when Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright relaunched Pink Floyd without Waters in the late \u201980s\u2026 my attitude was \u201cHave at it, guys.\u201d)<\/p>\n
As one might expect, David Gilmour<\/i> features a lot of sharp blues-rock guitar and echoey, rather dark and melancholy vocals. Gilmour provides vocals, guitars and keys, with Rick Wills (Peter Frampton, Roxy Music, Foreigner) on bass and Wills\u2019 former bandmate and longtime Gilmour pal Willie Wilson on drums.<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cMihalis\u201d is a tasty instrumental leading into the one cover here, of Unicorn\u2019s chunky blues-rocker \u201cThere\u2019s No Way Out Of Here.\u201d Its virtual sequel \u201cCry From The Street\u201d follows in a similar vein; both tracks feature superb guitar work, with the latter developing serious propulsion in the fifth minute as the rhythm section finds another gear, leading to a dynamic fadeout solo. Then \u201cSo Far Away\u201d changes pace, a thoughtful, rather wistful midtempo number with Mick Weaver\u2019s piano also featured. <\/p>\n
Album highlight \u201cShort And Sweet\u201d opens with some striking, heavily reverbed strums and chords, with a hint of organ underneath establishing the mood before Gilmour brings pulsing rhythm guitar in underneath on a steady-building philosophical tune that could have been a Floyd song. In the fourth minute things accelerate and Gilmour really shines with some absolutely gorgeous soloing.<\/p>\n
\u201cRaise My Rent\u201d is another instrumental, this time featuring big, arcing, echoey solos, the kind of stuff you could play me three seconds of and I would say \u201cOh, that’s David Gilmour.\u201d Then \u201cNo Way\u201d delivers a steady, pulsing, Floydian blues that erupts into a muscular solo, before \u201cDeafinitely\u201d ranges farther afield with a driving, rather Jeff Beck-ish instrumental with abundant skronky soloing.<\/p>\n
Closer \u201cI Can\u2019t Breathe Anymore\u201d is another very Floydian number, full of bold chords and echoey vocals, everything super-sized and full of muscle, leading to a positively explosive solo from the guitar hero himself.<\/p>\n
As a songwriter, David Gilmour may not generate the same degree of \u201cI\u2019m such a tortured soul\u201d angst as his musical other half Roger Waters, but he\u2019s solid, and his guitar playing is exceptional. David Gilmour<\/i> is an occasionally rambling but consistently impressive showcase for the half of Pink Floyd\u2019s musical personality that I\u2019ve always preferred.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8312],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46703","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-david-gilmour","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46703"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46703"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}