Best Song On Momentary Lapse Of Reason

Generally, when I listen to AMLOR, I listen to Signs of Life/Learning To Fly/Yet Another Movie/Terminal Frost/Sorrow. Nothing more. Like UmmaGumma Studio, I haven't listened to all of it in ages.

Sorrow: One of the best Gilmour Solos... really cool. And The Drums are great.

Dogs Of War: Great sound... kinda heavy

Terminal Frost: That coversation between Guitar, Piano and Saxo is great.

Yet Another Movie: Sounds special, and the solo is amazing... a different from the other gilmour solos.

NOOOOOOOO!!!! Please don't say Dogs of War!!!!!

One of the worst Gilmour tunes ever recorded!

Several great songs on this one.
Learning to fly is good, but i think Pulse version/Delicate sound version is better.
Yet another movie has got a cool sound,with the snare drum coming "late" and the solo is great!
Sorrow: Great Solo! one of the best David has written.Good drumming one this one two.
Other highlights are "One the turning away" and "Dogs of war".
The delicate sound version of Dogs of war is awesome!
Love how the saxophone and guitar goes together on this one.

Yet another movie really does remind me of an 80s action film soundtrack. Probably set in China with a lot of Kung Fu. It's the 'pan pipes' bit in the middle that really gets the hairs standing on end. The track was quite a live feast too - with glo sticks!

I've never really got on with 'Learning to fly'. Although David's vocal is pleasant enough, the bassline and keyboard part just annoy me.

Terminal frost is another fave but only for the mid 8 where all hell breaks loose and a fine sax solo comes to the fore.

A New Machine p1 and 2 are useless and probably the worst PF songs ever written.

I really like the concept of sorrow but it just sounds too 80s for me to truely love. But the 'he talks to the river...' bit will always stand out as a truely great moment for me live.

The three favorites that I posted are:
"Signs of Life" - Since it has no lyrics (except some hidden ones), the music is the important thing here and it sounds just good, though Cluster One is even better.
"Yet another movie" - The part between 0:50 and 1:10 is one of THESE Pink Floyd sounds, the hole song combines well with my visualisations and there are lots of "hidden" messages.
"Sorrow" - Though there are not many unusual and surprising ideas during the song, the ones that are there, are really good, like singing the same part in different melodies at the same time. And I still have not found out the third hidden message at 5:08...

My favs are:
2-Learning to Fly
3-Dogs of War
4-One Slip
5-On the Turning away
---How can ayone Like a new machiene, why dave gilmour put that on confuses me....

Me, I like it !

meh

RB

What? Okay I'm not going to review masters no matter how great it is. The topic is boring album. Here we go.
Perhaps not as proverbially bad as it is often described - this record does have its redeeming moments, after all. But it's so dull that it's almost unlistenable - the amount of real energy is at a zero level, and the main forte of Pink Floyd is gone: the few special effects don't have any thrill at all and mostly sound like weak parodies. The melodies are simple to the extreme, the lyrics are crap, and moreover, the band members don't even play on the album: except for Gilmour's obligatory guitar solos, the instruments are played by a swarm of session musicians.
So why a 5? See, there's just no reason for this album to be necessarily weaker than all the kind of modernized progressive stuff of the era. Yes, Emerson, Lake & Powell, Asia, everybody was putting out this stuff called 'modern prog' that pretty much all sounded the same, and yet, even though I am sometimes tempted to write all this mess off as a profanation of the original art, I still try to sit through these heaps of potential garbage to fish out the few pearls or, at least, the stuff that could have sounded good with different arrangements an epoch ago. In this context, A Momentary Lapse doesn't sound particularly appalling. Take it as a product of its epoch - not as a permutation of the original Pink Floyd sound (which it was) caused by the departure of Roger Waters (actually, by the 'departure' of everybody but Gilmour). Oh, well. At least it's better than Big Generator.
Funny, though, how badly Dave wanted this to sound like a genuine Pink Floyd album. To do this, he even incorporated an oddly titled instrumental ('Signs Of Life'; they wanted to name the album likewise at first, but changed their mind after Dave remarked it would give the critics a sneering chance - what's the matter with the actual title then, I wonder?), like I said, an oddly titled instrumental that begins with strange noises, sounding like a watermill to me, that apparently are supposed to remind you of the ominous intro to Dark Side. And the music itself is certainly a rip-off of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond', right to the closing Dave solo. Needless to say, one can only shrug one's shoulders at the attempt, because it seems like a pigmy parody. Where the moody synth lines and heavenly solo in 'Shine On' meant total and immediate catharsis, these weak recreations only make me yawn. What's the matter Dave? Where's your talent at putting together heavenly solos? Gimme something better!
Even worse, Dave did try to replace Roger in his primary function - finding new thrilling gimmicks to plaster the record with 'em. Fortunately, he only found a few, because they don't just suck, they're horrendous. 'A New Machine', with its spoken lines over organ playing that keep fading in and fading out, is a perfect example of how to make an unsuccessful Floyd parody, and the fact that Gilmour takes it all too seriously is even more terrifying to realize. And the roaring of dogs at the beginning of 'The Dogs Of War' (again, a concept unprofessionally stolen from Animals) just confirms the idea that the guy was at a terrible lack of 'em.
That said, there's maybe only about a couple really bad songs on the whole album - 'A New Machine' is certainly one of them, but it's short, even if it contains two parts (the second is a very brief reprise), and 'Yet Another Movie' is a piece of pseudo-metallic muck that was supposed to recreate the sinister notes on The Wall but failed once again. As for 'Dogs Of War', it is very banal, but I don't hate it as much as everybody else does - I mean, sometimes I do find some dorky pleasure in listening to it. Everybody needs some guilty simple pleasures in life, and anyway, it's at least memorable and a teeny-weeny bit energetic.
The other material has only one fault - it drags. Apart from the great sky anthem 'Learning To Fly', the only deserving classic on the record, the other four songs just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on... somebody stop me, but it's so. Slow, melodyless, mostly built on some presumably moody but feeble keyboard playing, then presumably picking up steam when Dave hits the chords but in reality just being totally predictable... like, you know, 'it's already four minutes into the song and old Gilmour hasn't soared yet. He's bound to take off in a couple of seconds. Oh, there he goes. Okay, guys, lunchtime!' This might be good background music for you to enjoy in the car if you have a long way to go, but don't expect to get any emotional thrill out of here. At least the solos are good - I mean, there's very little dentistry on these four songs. Perhaps a couple minutes on 'Sorrow', that's all: Dave mostly sticks to normal guitar tone. But that's no consolation, really. There was no future for the band after Roger left. Not that there would necessarily be any future for 'em had he stayed, as witnessed by The Final Cut. In an age when special effects and thriller-type gimmicks didn't really matter much more, a band like Pink Floyd were bound to begin rolling downhill. The only thing that could have saved them (as it briefly saved Paul McCartney, for instance) would be to begin paying more attention to melody. But when did a band as smart as Pink Floyd pay a lot of attention to a thing as trite as melody? I'll refrain from saying 'never', but you know the directions of my thought...

I just got this album a few weeks ago and after giving it a some good listens, I think it's a real good album. Not great, and it certainly can't touch the Pink Floyd albums with Roger Waters, but still enjoy this one a lot.

Favorites:

#1 Learning to Fly
Have always loved this song, long before I bought AMLOR. just awesome. One of Floyd's all time greats.

#2 On the Turning Away
THis is a song I remember hearing a lot in the 80's. It was one of those songs that after I heard it off this album. I said "Holy S#*#! This is Floyd?!? Beautiful song.

#3 Signs of Life'
Makes me feel funny inside...just strikes a chord. There's a feel to it that's hard to explain.

#4 One Slip
Poppy, but very cool.

#5 Sorrow
Great song, don't think it's the class of the album, but definitely great tune with some cool guitar in the beginning.

Rest of the album is a little mediocre...boring in parts, weird in others ( A new Machine)

PLEASE somebody stop him!!!

Why stop him, if he likes typing?

Plain to see.

Turning away and Learning to fly are great songs!! Including One Slip