A Momentary Lapse of Reason Review

Everything that made the band worth arguing about is missing here and everything that made them sell is present. The production is glassy and enormous, all gated reverb and fretless bass and digital chorus, which dates it far more precisely than any of the seventies records date. Gilmour plays beautifully, as always, and Sorrow and On the Turning Away have real guitar performances in them. But the lyrics were written in part by a collaborator brought in to fill the gap, and it shows in every line: they gesture at loss and communication and history without ever landing on a specific image.

Learning to Fly is about taking flying lessons and is the most honest thing on the record because it is the only one about something actual. Wright is credited as a session musician on an album by his own band, which tells you the whole story. Handsome, professional, occasionally moving in the solos, and hollow in the middle where the writer used to be.