The Wall Review

As an object it is formidable. The narrative holds across four sides, the recurring motifs return exactly when they should, and the production is enormous without being muddy. Comfortably Numb is the peak, two guitar solos over a chord sequence that Gilmour brought in and Waters wrote words to, and the argument between them audible in the arrangement. Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 is a disco beat and a school choir, and it was the biggest thing they ever had.

Hey You and Nobody Home are small and devastating. The problem is not quality, it is habitability. Eighty minutes of one man's self pity, however well dramatised, is a lot to sign up for, and the second half in particular becomes a courtroom drama that only rewards close attention. The isolation the record describes is the isolation it enforces. I admire almost everything about the writing and the build. I reach for it perhaps once a year, and that has to count in the verdict.