David Gilmour
On An Island

David Gilmour returns to the stage after twelve years since the release of "The Division Bell," the last album by Pink Floyd, and a full twenty-two years since "About Face," his last solo album.

The anticipation is truly high, but Gilmour seems used to it and delivers an album that, despite few novelties, is filled with compositions of the highest quality.
It all opens with ""Castellorizzon"," where the guitarist resurrects some musical themes from the best of Pink Floyd, including echoes of "Echoes" and the bells of "High Hopes," almost as if wanting to continue a group now buried and part of rock history. ""On An Island"" is a song that directly touches Floyd fans and takes them back approximately to the mid-seventies, as this piece vaguely reminds of ""Shine On You Crazy Diamond"." The harmonies of Crosby and Nash, Wright on keyboard, Klose on guitar, and a classic solo at the end by David Gilmour complete a piece that will become part of the entire production history of the guitarist. Even "The Blue" is another composition of high quality, sung together with Wright, leaving space for Chris Stainton, Joe Cocker's keyboardist. "Take A Breath" is the most decisive and least dreamy track of the ten on the list, but not the best. With the instrumental "Red Sky At Night", we return once again to those dreamy and melancholic sounds to be listened to in the dark and with closed eyes to obtain true sensations.
"This Heaven" is an astonishingly Blues piece that brings back the '60s with its lazy rhythm. Producer Manzanera, in this track as in some previous ones, plays the keyboard. "Then I Close My Eyes" is perhaps the only negative note of this album, composed to fill space and extend the duration of this "On An Island". "Smile" is another great song, where haunting atmospheres, maintained also in "A Pocketful Of Stones", take over and provoke thought.
The concluding "Where We Start" is a melancholic ballad that closes an album which disappoints no one. Collaborations, lyrics written together with his wife Polly Samson, producer Manzanera but above all the virtuosity of one of the most important guitarists in music history, make an album certainly more convincing than the latest by Pink Floyd.

It is obvious that a Gilmour without Waters (and vice versa) is not able to compose a better work than the entire discography of one of the most important groups in music history.