Why troubled Waters refuses to go quietly
ROGER WATERS: Is This The Life We Really Want? (Columbia) Verdict: Worth the long wait
THE original heroes of British rock continue to flourish and fascinate. In a week that marks the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album, another figurehead of 1967’s fabled summer of love returns.
As the bassist in Pink Floyd, Roger Waters was finishing his band’s debut album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, in Abbey Road studios at the same time as The Beatles were putting the final touches to Sgt Pepper just along the corridor.
With an American solo tour now under way and the V&A’s Pink Floyd exhibition, Their Mortal Remains, having just extended its opening hours, he has picked the perfect moment to unveil his first solo offering in 25 years.
The album contains plenty of familiar Waters — and Floyd — hallmarks. Described by the singer, 73, as ‘a commentary on uncertain times’, it rails against the ills of the world through an atmospheric mix of tape loops, acoustic guitar and majestic strings.
Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and, despite a fleeting reunion 20 years later at Live 8, he played no part on the last Floyd album, 2014’s The endless River.
That record, punctuated by guitarist David Gilmour’s luxuriant solos, lacked the acerbic edge that Waters might have provided. The opposite applies here: there’s more than enough grit, but less dreamy tranquillity.
The suspicion lingers that Waters and Gilmour would benefit from patching up their personal differences and working together again. That is unlikely, of course. And, in the meantime, this is an accomplished enough comeback. Made with Nigel Godrich, who produced Radiohead’s OK Computer, it is distinguished by some dazzling instrumental interplay and a barrage of sound effects, including trains, dogs, seagulls and — in an echo of Blur’s This Is A Low — a sample from the shipping forecast.
As well as writing and singing, Waters plays acoustic guitar and bass, with Godrich adding guitar, keyboards and ‘ sound collages’. Crack session players, including Beck’s drummer Joey Waronker and singers Jessica Wolfe and Holly Proctor, give the songs a polished sheen.
As its uncompromising title suggests, Is This The Life We Really Want? doesn’t beat about the bush in picking up on themes similar to those that fuelled Water’s last solo album, 1992’s Amused To Death.
Corporate greed, authoritarian leaders and wall-to-wall TV are all in his sights. His gloomy tone can sound hectoring, although his angry gripes do give the 12 new songs here a real sense of purpose. Déjà Vu finds him musing on what might have happened ‘if I had been God’. It even adds thunderclaps for dramatic effect. He gets down to the nitty-gritty on The Life We Really Want singing, in a husky croak, of a goose ‘fat on caviar and fancy bars’.
He throws in references to sub- prime loans and reality TV for good measure. And, if the listener feels somewhat harangued by all the fingerwagging, the effect is alleviated by delightful, Radiohead-like guitar and subtle electronic percussion.
Refusing to adopt the softer tone now preferred by fellow septuagenarians such as Bob Dylan, he pushes his voice to its limits on the acoustic Broken Bones and the swirling rocker Picture That.
There are some more reflective, personal moments, includ- ing an elegiac, three-song suite that supplies an impressive, nine-minute finale.
As with almost everything else Waters has done, this return has been billed as a sequel to Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Dark Side Of The Moon. Those heady heights remain unscaled here, but this is still a worthwhile addition to the canon.