ALBUM REVIEWS
ROGER WATERS Is This the Life We Really Want? Columbia
Two things are clear after listening to Is This the Life We Really Want? — the first rock album in 25 years from Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters. The 73-year-old Waters has not mellowed with age and he’s none-too-pleased with the current state of world affairs. In fact, he’s downright angry. There’s a reason why Is This the Life We Really Want? comes with an explicit lyrics warning.
The record is both a loud protest of current events and a continuation of the themes Waters last explored 25 years ago on Amused to Death and throughout his career, even dating back to Animals and The Wall, Pink Floyd’s albums from the 1970s.
Anyone hoping for a bold new direction — or some level of subtlety from Waters — isn’t going to find it here.
Waters rails against greed, injustice, lying politicians, brainless leaders and “nincompoop” presidents over 12 tracks. The spectre of Donald Trump, and at one point even his voice, permeates the record.
While it’s firmly rooted in the present, ticking clocks, ghostly (and sometimes angry) disembodied voices, barking dogs and a passing reference to the guitar riff of Wish You Were Here all serve as echoes of Pink Floyd’s past without being a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
HALSEY hopeless fountain kingdom Astralwerks/Capitol
To describe Halsey’s sophomore album as ambitious would be an understatement. It actually begins with her speaking the prologue of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare is kind of a tough act to follow.
So full credit to Halsey for stretching herself on hopeless fountain kingdom, an album that demands attention as the singersongwriter explores new musical ground, often in non-commercial places.
It’s a complex, sober, riskier CD brimming with heartbreak from one of pop’s most exciting artists. Halsey considers it a concept album and how well it works is debatable. But there’s no denying the skill and desire involved.
Halsey lets her rock voice out to great effect in Bad at Love and she melds nicely with Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui on the techno-flavoured lovers’ duet Strangers.
Alone marries anguished lyrics to a peppy Donna Summer-like arrangement.
The Weeknd gets a songwriting credit on the ghostly Eyes Closed and Sia gets one for the very Sia-like Devil in Me.
Halsey, born Ashley Frangipane, rose to fame with Closer, her monster track with The Chainsmokers, and her excellent 2015 debut album, Badlands.