Roger Waters
may not have made an album of new material between 1992 and 2017, but he was very active during that quarter-century. He toured regularly, wrote an opera, reunited
Pink Floyd
for the 2005 charity concert Live 8, and revived
The Wall
several times, turning the self-absorbed rock opera into a political piece.
Is This the Life We Really Want?
, his fourth song cycle, picks up on this thread, functioning as barbed protest music for the age of Brexit and Trump.
Waters
doesn't disguise his bile -- there's a lament for "The Last Refugee" and he spits out "picture a leader with no f****** brains," a clear broadside against Trump -- but the album doesn't seethe with rage. With its deliberate tempos, wide soundscapes, operatic guitar solos, and swelling crescendos, it is recognizably a
album or, perhaps more accurately, a
Floyd
ian one. Where his other solo albums sported productions that tied them to their time -- quite garishly so in the case of 1987's
Radio K.A.O.S.
--
is warm and supple, thanks in no small part to a band featuring guitarists
Jonathan Wilson
and
Gus Seyffert
, drummer
Joey Waronker
, and keyboardist
Roger Manning
. The key player, though, is producer
Nigel Godrich
, who gives this a sonic richness evoking late-period
without specifically nodding toward any particular record. Certainly,
lacks the straightforward narrative or melodic thrust of
, but it isn't as somnolent as
The Final Cut
, and if the songs don't call attention to themselves, they nevertheless form a long suite that works as a sustained mood piece. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine