Judging the Gilmour-Led Pink Floyd on Its Own Terms, 39 Years After A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Pink Floyd returns in 1987 with “A Momentary Lapse of Reason,” the band’s first album made without bassist and chief writer Roger Waters. The record depends heavily on the playing of its guitarist and studio polish, trading Waters’ records built around story for mood and hooks. Ten tracks, 51 minutes, built to fill arenas rather than tell one long story.

Track By Track

“Signs of Life” opens the album as a steady instrumental, built around bright guitar tone, in no hurry to get anywhere. “Learning to Fly” follows and stands as one of the strongest songs here, carried by a strong hook and the guitarist’s tone doing most of the work.

“The Dogs of War” and “One Slip” keep things moving without matching that high point. “One Slip” has a tighter pop sense than most of the album, even if the words stay thin.

“On the Turning Away” is the heart of the record. The guitar passage that closes the track is the best playing on the whole album, full stop.

The middle portion loses energy. “Yet Another Movie / Round and Around” runs past seven minutes without earning the length, and “A New Machine, Part 1” and “A New Machine, Part 2” feel like filler between bigger songs rather than statements of their own. “Terminal Frost” is pleasant but easy to forget next to what comes before and after it.

“Sorrow” closes the album at 8:47, the longest track on the record, and it is the one late moment that earns its length — dark, heavy, and closer to the weight of the band’s older work, made when Roger Waters still led the band, than anything else here.

The Numbers

• Artist: Pink Floyd
• Album: A Momentary Lapse of Reason
• Year: 1987
• Tracks: 10
• Total running time: 51 minutes
• Longest track: “Sorrow” (8:47)
• Shortest track: “A New Machine, Part 2” (0:39)

What The Reviews Say

The production is polished, at times too polished. The guitarist’s playing carries whole parts of the album that the songs themselves cannot. There is real truth in calling this his own project wearing the Pink Floyd name — the single guiding hand that Roger Waters once gave these records is gone, and nothing here stands in for it.

But that is not the same as calling the album a failure. “Learning to Fly,” “On the Turning Away,” and “Sorrow” are strong songs, and the record never falls apart the way its harshest critics have claimed. It puts its best songs early, is unequal in quality across its ten tracks, and grows thin through the middle. Against the band’s peak years with Roger Waters, it falls short. As a rock album full of guitar work from 1987, it mostly works.

“A Momentary Lapse of Reason” is not the Pink Floyd of old, and it does not pretend to be. Judged on its own terms — as the guitarist’s idea of what the band could still be — it earns its high points even where it drags.

1987 albums · album review · classic rock · guitar rock · Pink Floyd