Roger Waters
Is This The Life We Really Want?

It had been announced for some years now, and finally here it is: exactly 25 years after his last (and best) solo album of original material, Amused to Death, Roger Waters has returned with a new and highly anticipated work. The latest effort by the legendary concept-man of Pink Floyd is produced by none other than Nigel Godrich and - I'll say it right away - it's a great album.

Let's clarify immediately for the most demanding: there is nothing new. Indeed, practically everything, from start to finish, feels already heard. However, beyond the complete lack of innovation (but did we really expect it? I don't believe it), it’s truly a great album: it doesn’t reach the levels of Amused, but it's much better than that confused potpourri that was The Pros and Cons..., and the unlikely plasticky pop-rock of Radio KAOS. It's a strong, compact, powerful album that has a lot to say, and what it has to say - as always - it shouts without inhibitions. It's a 100% Waters work where everything expected from the English bassist is present: furious j'accuse against the decay of today’s society, fierce political stances, passionate anti-militarist bursts, intimate and melancholic ballads, paranoia, anger, catharsis and above all great sonic grandeur.

Musically, as we said, there is nothing new, on the contrary: more than ever, the album is a continuous game of references-recycling-reproduction of well-tested patterns and styles, especially from the late Floyd production. In fact, if in his previous works the bassist often seemed to almost force himself to detach from the Floyd-sound with mixed and not always fitting results (the Claptonian blues of Pros and Cons, the 80’s pop of Radio KAOS), today Waters seems to have made peace with the past and doesn’t hesitate to precisely recreate the atmospheres of Animals, The Final Cut, and even Wish You Were Here (raise your hand if, at the attack of the first single Smell the Roses, didn’t immediately think of Have a Cigar!). And if the Floydian recycling is clear right from the intro - which with the subtly winking title of When We Were Young brazenly reproduces the heartbeat and clock ticks of Dark Side! - there is an important character of detachment that, this time, yes, is a novelty for Waters: the total and voluntary abandonment of the solo electric guitar in the arrangement of the tracks. There are three guitarists present in the album's lineup (Gus Seyffert, Jonathan Wilson, and Godrich himself), none of whom, however, engage in Gilmour-style solos, which are completely banned from the track production. A bold choice, and certainly a defining feature of the album's sound, which mainly consists of two types of songs: slow and melancholic ballads with acoustic guitar and piano (Deja-Vu, The Most Beautiful Girl, Wait for Her) and dark and angry tracks with gloomy and hallucinatory synthesizers à la Animals (Picture That, Bird in a Gale, Smell the Roses).

On the lyrics front, Waters once again manages not to fall too much into easy moralism or generic political rant. The main target is obviously the much-hated Donald Trump, already fiercely attacked in recent tour concerts (where grotesque and obscene images of Trump as a pig hovered on giant screens during the performance of Pigs), and to whom the harshest words are directed: in the acid Picture That (with a text that seems caustically modeled on the opening of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds: "Picture yourself as you lean on the port rail, tossing away your last cigarette..."), he is referred to as "a leader with no fucking brains", while in the title track it is "a nincompoop becomes the President". The scenarios include the wars in the Middle East (Picture That), the business behind arms manufacturing (Smell the Roses, whose text sarcastically mentions Light My Fire), the drama of migrations (The Last Refugee), the innocence and beauty violated by the violence of the world (The Most Beautiful Girl). Among all the lyrics in the album, the powerful ones of the title track stand out, originally born as a poem composed in 2008:

And every time a student gets run over by a tank, every time a Russian bride is advertised to be sold, every time a journalist is left to rot in a cell, every time a young girl's life is casually wasted, every time a nincompoop becomes president, every time someone dies reaching for their keys, and every time Greenland melts into the fucking sea it's because of all of us: white, black, Mexican, Asian [...] ants... no, perhaps not the ants, because it's true that ants don't have a high enough IQ to understand the difference between the suffering of others and, for example, cutting leaves, or swarming around the window seals in search of an open jar of molasses. Thus, like ants, we are simply obtuse: is this why we don’t feel or see? Or are we just numb from reality TV? So every time the curtain falls on some forgotten life, it's because we remain stone-still, mute and indifferent: it's normal.

A few words about the final triptych, Wait for Her/Oceans Apart/Part of Me Died, a single acoustic suite in three movements, that surprisingly concludes the album talking about love. Yes, indeed, because the final message of the album is as simple and seemingly banal, as it is effective and touching: love as salvation, redemption, and a remedy for the world’s evils.

But when I laid eyes on her, a part of me died: the envious, ruthless, deceitful, greedy, spiteful, global, colonial, bloodthirsty, blind, unreasonable and easy part, focused on borders and slaughter and sheep, that burns books, demolishes houses, dedicated to drone-killed targets, lethal injections, detentions without trial [...] when I met you, that part of me died.

What can I say to conclude? An excellent album. Those expecting something new may end up disappointed: here you'll find, neither more nor less, the Roger Waters we all know, who has returned in great style after such a long silence. And it deserves a careful listen, even just for the passion, vehemence, and sincerity with which he continues to express himself bluntly, like the seasoned songwriter he is. Those who love Waters for what he has been from his last Floydian works to his solo production will certainly not be disappointed by this work: Roger is always himself, and - like it or not - he still has a lot to say. And now we look forward to seeing him live again (the tour has just started in the States), with the usual grandeur.