1987, the year this album came out, marks the 20th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s first album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. It was and is an innovative album but unlike other Pink Floyd albums such as DSOTM or The Wall, Piper’s influence wasn’t as widespread. As such, it remains an album of its time; not dated, but nevertheless acts as a perfect time capsule into British psychedelia circa 1967.
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason is also very much an album of its time, albeit in a much less endearing way than Piper. The album contains a lot of staples of 1980s music; metallic guitars, drum machines, synthesizers, saxophone solos, etc. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with a band exploring new types of music and branching out, there still needs to be a personal imprint on the music to make it their own; The Beatles were a prime example of that (though it might not be fair to compare The Beatles to the Floyd as they are not in the same category).
The only song that sounds like a real Pink Floyd song is “The Dogs Of War,” a Roger Waters era pastiche with some driving orchestration, nice keyboard trills that punctuate Gilmour’s vocals on each line and Gilmour sings the vocals with some conviction; on the other songs he sounds bored and weary, as if he’s not confident about the lyrics he’s singing. That being said, the song is not my favorite one (it’s too overwrought): that would go to “Learning To Fly.” It’s very much an 80s pop song, but it’s still a charming pop song. Maybe it’s because “Learning To Fly” comes so early on the album that I had yet to become tired of the album’s 1980s cheesiness.
God knows you’ll get burned out on that soon enough. Just about every song progresses the same way: it starts off interesting and sounds like a Pink Floyd song, but soon descends into a generic 1980s song. “On The Turning Away” is the best of these kinds of songs, largely because Gilmour had enough sense to have the first two or so minutes of him soulfully sing while strumming an acoustic guitar. “Terminal Frost” is the worst of the lot; it’s an instrumental that lasts six minutes long and contains all of the cheesy 1980s instruments you’d ever want to hear.
Now for a personal story (be very afraid). The first time I “heard” this album was at a sleepover in high school. Since it was customary to put on an album when we went to bed and the fact that there’s no band that helps you do that better than Pink Floyd (I mean this as a compliment), this one got put on; I want to let you know that putting this specific album on to go to sleep to is not a good idea.
The main song I remembered was one that started off with an obnoxious sound that was then followed by silence. I’d be drifting off to sleep and the obnoxious sound would come back. The routine of silence, drifting off to sleep followed by the obnoxious sound continued. Now that I’ve listened to this album all the way through, I have finally found the culprit: “A New Machine Part 1” and “A New Machine Part 2.” Thankfully this time I wasn’t trying to go to sleep but it was still as annoying as it was the first time; the whole time you feel as though you’re a rat being given shock treatment.
While The Final Cut sounded very much like a Roger Waters dominated album, this sounds very much like a David Gilmour dominated album. While I like this a little bit better than The Final Cut because this one is more musical, A Momentary Lapse of Reason is very cheesy; something that could never be said about any other Pink Floyd album. Even the instrumentation by the members of the group is quite weak; it’s great that Richard Wright is back and some of the keyboard stuff is quite good, but Gilmour’s solos are actually really weak. He just sounds like all he’s doing is sustaining high notes instead of creating something melodic like he does on his best solos.
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason sounds like a conscious attempt to be commercial; it sounds like a soundtrack to a bad 1980s action movie. The rest of Pink Floyd’s albums have sounded out of their time and in doing that, they sound timeless. While I’m not Roger Waters’ biggest fan, the album could have benefitted from one of his concepts; this album lacks drive. Nevertheless both The Final Cut and A Momentary Lapse Of Reason have shown themselves to be two blunders in a row in Pink Floyd’s discography of late. Let’s hope that whatever is going on is a momentary lapse in their career.
Track List (Ranked Strongest To Weakest)
- Learning To Fly
- The Dogs Of War
- On The Turning Away
- Signs Of Life
- Sorrow
- Yet Another Movie
- Round And Around
- A New Machine Part 1
- A New Machine Part 2
- Terminal Frost
- One Slip
