The thing about being an old rock star is that, assuming you haven\u2019t blown all the money, you can pretty much do as you please. Some go to parties, some stay home, some remain productive, and some only emerge from dormancy every decade or so, like cicadas. Of course, \u201cproductive\u201d might look different at 78 than it did at 28, but that\u2019s not the point.<\/p>\n
The point is that while, in one sense, David Gilmour didn\u2019t need to make a new album\u2014his share of the Pink Floyd empire surely keeps the bills paid, and the man has nothing left to prove\u2014he also did, simply because his urge to create has not dimmed. (In fact, he\u2019s already spoken of being eager to make another album with the same players used here; don\u2019t threaten us with a good time.) <\/p>\n
\u201cDoing as you please\u201d in this case encompasses the decision to make the nine-track Luck And Strange<\/i> a family affair in multiple respects. Other than one cover, all of the tracks are co-composed by Gilmour (music) and Polly Samson (lyrics), his wife. Gilmour and Samson\u2019s daughter Romany and son Gabriel each contribute vocals. Gilmour\u2019s friend and longtime Pink Floyd bandmate Richard Wright makes a posthumous appearance on the title track, and latter-day Pink Floyd bassist Guy Pratt plays on most of these tracks.<\/p>\n
Luck And Strange <\/i>opens with an appetizer, the 90-second instrumental \u201cBlack Cat,\u201d a spare piano line providing the backdrop for a delicate, precise, instantly recognizable guitar solo. (I can think of maybe a dozen rock guitarists whose tone and phrasing are so distinctive that I could identify them within a handful of notes; Gilmour is one.) <\/p>\n
From there we dive into the title track, a sprawling, superb creation crafted over the course of nearly two decades. An elastic, bluesy 2007 jam among Gilmour, Wright, Pratt and drummer Steve DiStanislao is given a fresh incarnation here, its slinky, groovy, oh-so-Floydian musical foundation now decorated with airy synths and harmonies as Gilmour sings Samson\u2019s penetrating lyrics, a philosophical look back on a long and eventful life. \u201cQuite a time to be born \/ Six-string masters of an expanding universe… But let\u2019s hope it\u2019s not just luck and strange \/ A one-off peaceful golden age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seven minutes later, \u201cThe Piper\u2019s Call\u201d arrives, a thrummy, dreamy mid-tempo number with a psychedelic edge that feels like an intentional callback to early Floyd. It\u2019s followed by \u201cA Single Spark,\u201d which represents perhaps the biggest musical departure here, a rather theatrical number augmented with an assertive orchestra. The arrangement takes full advantage of the grit and depth that age has added to Gilmour\u2019s voice as it leads up to an extended, expressive solo. The topic once again is mortality: \u201cSay it isn\u2019t true that it\u2019s all through in a single spark \/ Between two eternities.\u201d<\/p>\n
A brief instrumental snippet (\u201cVita Brevis\u201d) offers a moody cleansing breath, and then we\u2019re into the lone cover here, \u201cBetween Two Points,\u201d another tune about mortality, this time featuring layered acoustic lines, a pulsing kick drum and Romany Gilmour firmly in the spotlight with her pretty, emotional lead vocal. In the fifth minute, Gilmour senior takes over for a restrained, evocative electric solo that carries the song across the finish line.<\/p>\n
Kicking off the final trio, \u201cDark And Velvet Nights\u201d delivers a chunky, echoey, rather haunted blues, with Gilmour sounding right at home. The airy, rather Beatlesque celebration of a longtime love \u201cSings\u201d finds Gilmour entreating: \u201cDarling, turn back the clock \/ Give me time, make it stop \/ Let\u2019s hold back the news \/ Stay inside this cocoon.\u201d An orchestra again gives the track an extra measure of lift. Closing things out, \u201cScattered\u201d begins as a gentle, introspective number, then builds toward a rather chaotic orchestral interlude, before the song resumes again. Later on, there\u2019s a sharp acoustic solo before Gilmour comes back in with that trademark electric sound, energetic bursts of notes arcing like raw electricity off a transformer. <\/p>\n
The digital and CD package includes a pair of bonus tracks. \u201cYes I Have Ghosts\u201d features a rather Renaissance-flavored acoustic arrangement with Romany Gilmour layering her vocals on top of her father\u2019s in places. And the original 14-minute instrumental jam version of \u201cLuck And Strange\u201d makes for a wonderfully atmospheric coda.<\/p>\n
The core band for Luck And Strange<\/i> is Gilmour, Pratt (bass), Steve Gadd (drums) and Rob Gentry (keys), and they\u2019re as sympatico a group as Gilmour has ever assembled for his solo work. The album\u2019s crisp sound and depth of field are thanks to co-producers Gilmour and Charlie Andrew. <\/p>\n
David Gilmour joined Pink Floyd in 1967 at the age of 21. Fifty-seven years later, his iconic voice and guitar tone remain instantly recognizable, and Luck And Strange<\/i>\u2019s power, vitality, and craft suggest there\u2019s more still to come from David Gilmour. We can only hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8312],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-47079","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\/47079","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=47079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47079"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47079"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}