CD Review: David Gilmour "On an Island"

CD Review: David Gilmour “On an Island”
By Hunter60

“I’ve felt the poor in a holy place
Wished for comfort when in need
Now I’m here in a state of grace
This earthly heaven is enough for me”
“This Heaven” – David Gilmour

With twenty years between solo albums and a full twelve years from the last so-so Pink Floyd Release, you might have thought that David Gilmour had run out of things to say with his music. He was one of the driving forces behind some of the most lasting rock, psychedelic or otherwise, records in the past forty some odd years – what’s left? His third solo disc, titled “On an Island”, released on March 1st, 2006, seems to answer the question. Although as is often the case, the answer is may not be what you were expecting.

The disc is a laid back, mellow affair for the most part. Rather than a Day-Glo painted poster from his Pink Floyds glory days, this is a post card from the introspective side of an aging rock and roll giant. Released not so coincidentally on his 60th birthday, the tracks seem to be perhaps the most personal of his career which is saying something when you review his previous works. If you close your eyes, slip on the headphones, the Floyd vibe rings true. The tone is pure Gilmour – unmistakable. Sustain heavy, echo rich with technique to spare. This is David Gilmour all grown up and now glancing over his shoulder with a wink and a nod.

Gilmour has packed “On an Island” with guest spots and quick appearances including the noted Polish orchestral director Zbigniew Preisner on “Castellorizon”. The track winds and rolls on the back of Preisners orchestration but Gilmours guitar set the stage. David Crosby and Graham Nash offer up harmonizing melodies on the title track, which is elegant and dream-like love song.” The Blue” follows suit, rich and airy sounding, the keyboards providing a tapestry for Gilmours relaxed, almost hypnotic vocals (which are more than capably backed by keyboardist Richard Wright) and always rich and tonally exquisite guitar work.

Lest you think that Gilmour has moved beyond being able to rock, “Take a Breath” will end those thoughts quickly enough. This is what I had been expecting with this disc. The best way to describe this track is simply to say that if barbed wire had a sound inherent to it, this is it. It’s vintage Gilmour; stylistically heavy, trudging along familiar ground but a welcome sight, with a sense of thunder pervading the track.

“Red Sky at Night” is a lazy, late at night, saxophone saturated piece (provided by Gilmour himself) that lends itself to having been created for a movie that hasn’t been filmed yet. Images of wet pavement after midnight, paper blowing in a breeze, a car horn somewhere “out there” and hushed conversations in an alleyway. The track melts into “This Heaven” which may is the most personal track on the disc. This song, an acoustic start-up with heartfelt lyrics melding into the layered track that brings it all together. This is what should happen to rock stars when they hit their sixties. They celebrate what they’ve done by adopting a sensibility to their playing that still showcases talents and abilities without the desperate scrabble for the image of youth.

“Then I Close My Eyes” and “Smile” are summer days on the back porch tracks – easy, sweet with an underlying sense of something extraordinary at play. With backings and assists by the likes of Robert Wyatt on the coronet and percussion, B.J. Cole playing a Weissenborn guitar and Caroline Dale’s cello, the tracks are full, rich and at first blush, seemingly out of synch for the disc. At least until it meanders a bit. Once these tracks take traction, they will bring you back for several listens. There is a lesson here about how often times, the simplest direction is the correct one.

“Pocketful of Stones” has the lyrical command of a cautionary tale. Rivers run dry but there’s no line on his brow / Says he doesn’t care who’s saved / It’s just the dice you roll, the here and now / And he’s not guilty or afraid… It is a song that I have played many times over now and each time I am struck by the slow intensity of Gilmours playing here but more so by the song itself. It’s one that will leave pondering things in your own existence.

The disc ends with “Where we start”. If you have a chance to look through the disc jacket, which interestingly enough is made to look like a small hard cover book complete with a cloth cover, the photo that accompanies the lyric sheet shows Gilmour and his wife (and often times co-writer and vocalists) Polly Samson, walking hand in hand along a country lane. This is a reflective song, one that Gilmour seems to have written to Samson. A beautiful slow ballad that is both evocative and deep. Where we start is where we end / We step out sweetly, nothing planned… we waltz in the moonlight and the embers glow / so much behind us / still far to go.

This is Gilmour as a husband, father and a man. There is no sense of ego to this disc. For the Pink Floyd purist, it could be a bit of a disappointment. But to the fan of gifted guitar playing, solid lyrics and a grand composition, this disc will deliver. Gilmour has admitted in more than one interview that he is not a “fast” guitarist. But when you can play like Gilmour, you don’t have to be fast. But you have to have to be able to coax emotion out of your guitar, which he does with ease.

Freed from the dark, hob-nailed Orwellian fantasies of Roger Waters, Gilmours solo work shows that he was the “presentable face” of Pink Floyd. No band is just one person and Floyd was no exception. Each member brings a piece of himself to the band. This disc clearly reveals what Gilmour brought to Floyd.

It’s what he carries with him now.