It seems strange that a five-song live show could become so important in shaping the legacy of a band as colossal as Pink Floyd, but the group’s Live 8 performance in July 2005 managed to convince many sceptics to give them a second chance. Bombastic dinosaurs with sledgehammer lyrical concepts, or sumptuous late-night sonic sculptors? On that show’s evidence, the latter, but a trawl through their back catalogue may edge some listeners towards the former verdict.
A full-blown reunion tour may have persuaded a majority to alter their views favourably, but a proper comeback now looks unlikely. So, those who had their appetite whetted for more Floyd material last summer will have to make do with projects like On An Island, guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour’s first solo album since 1984. Happily, it delivers at least some of what they may be looking for.
Curious fellow, Gilmour. An avant-garde experimentalist, yet always teetering on the edge of MOR blandness - and frequently plummeting headlong into it. A man clearly in love with songcraft, yet always far more adept as a moodmaker than as a tunesmith.
His strength, of course, is that exquisitely crafted, precise guitar work. It’s undeniably familiar at this stage (from his own work with Floyd, and from the legion of imitators who made it their own), yet still manages to cut rich, detailed shapes in what would otherwise be a rather lumbering set of songs.
Strangely, the album’s best moments come in the shape of two guitar-solo-free instrumentals – ‘Castellorizon’ and ‘Red Sky At Night’ – which also avoid the more traditionally Floyd-ian strong structures that dominate On An Island. Rich ambient passages, heaving with mystery and melancholy – these two moments of exquisite beauty suggest that there may be more interesting things to come from this old dog.