★★☆☆☆
From the sonic landscapes of The Dark Side of the Moon to the inner torments of The Wall, Rogers Waters was the man with the drive, vision and psychological anguish to turn Pink Floyd into the world’s first existentialist stadium rock band. His first solo album in 25 years recalls those epochal classics, with Radiohead’s producer Nigel Godrich using a very Floydian mix of orchestral swells, everyday sounds, vocal echoes and mid-tempo rhythms to back up Waters’s obsessions. However, this time Waters has turned the rage outwards, with disappointingly finger-pointing results.
He doesn’t mince his words, from the description on Picture That of “a president with no f***ing brains” to The Life We Really Want blaming the democratic system “every time a nincompoop becomes the president”. Anger with Donald Trump is one thing; apparent disgust at the rest of the human race, expressed on the closer A Part of Me Died, is another. This progressive-rock protest album may be impressive, but it isn’t particularly pleasant, with Waters’s broad-brush vitriol proving not so much galvanising as disheartening. (Columbia)