The Floyd-Hole: Every Pink Floyd Album - Part 12

 THE FINAL CUT - REVIEW

The Post War Dream begins the album with sound effects (driving sounds and radio), and then sweetly transitions into some light organ music and gentle lyrics with religious undertones, feeling like a church hymn. It bumps up to something a little more epic towards the end - a strong crescendo - then fades out with more sound effects. Naturally it just wouldn't be a PF album without random sound effects.

Your Possible Pasts is up next, a track that would sound right at home in a rock opera, with singing that waffles between soft and intense, and an electric guitar that does the same. The lyrics are morose and reminiscent, as though reflecting on the past (fittingly). It's got some consistently hefty guitar/piano stings and heavy rhythm drops sprinkled into an otherwise gentle and whimsical song, which sounds epic, though a touch disjointed. The song finishes before it wears out its welcome, and feels "complete" as a result (which isn't the usual case for PF songs, I've discovered).

One Of The Few leads in with some rhythmic acoustic guitar plucking and near-whispered singing done over the sounds of children playing. The flatter tones make this track sound incredibly ominous. It is more of a brief interlude rather than a fully-realized song.

When the Tigers Broke Free is a new addition to the album remaster; a song ushered in by distant chanting and forlorn horns. It feels very much like a dreary (possibly Gaelic) marching song, the kind soldiers would sing to lament their lot during the Napoleonic Wars. It's a strangely empowering tune, with the sad tones bracketed by brass fanfare. Really captures a sullen post-war feeling.

Next comes The Hero's Return, brought in on the back of an electric guitar that sounds uncharacteristically like the classic "Miami Vice" style of 80s rock sounds. A lot of ups and downs in this song - the tempo, the volume, the emotion of the singing; they're all over the place. Fortunately, it works for the song. Airplane sound effects carry it into the next piece...

The Gunner's Dream starts out with the sounds of aviation, but then transforms into a lounge-y piano piece of sorts. The singing is again very morose (a theme for the album, I wager), but so gentle that you could probably fall asleep listening to this one... right until the big pick-up with a saxophone shortly after the 2-minute mark that wakes you right back up. There's some punctuated aggression in this song that plays perfectly across the general mellowness of the rest of it, making for quite a captivating piece.

The next song, Paranoid Eyes, seamlessly transitions from the former by leading in with the same softer piano playing and gentle vibe. Near-whisper singing played over sound effects is the gist of this one, with an acoustic guitar making an appearance in the middle to give the track some "pub" credence over the sounds of people drinking to lyrics about people drinking. A sullen drinking song, this one - the sort of "my life is slipping away" type of drinking song that is.

A big crash sound effect leads us into Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert, a brief sing-song interlude about war. Not much to say about this one, other than it being a great fit for the general military theme of the album.

The Fletcher Memorial Home comes next, with piano and string instruments giving the track a strong orchestral quality. The wailing lyrics speak of names long dead and shout unfairness to the hills, before dipping away quietly into a pretty solid electric guitar solo done in the style of the time. Getting some more rock opera vibes from this track, as though it's trying real hard to tell a story through song. The song ends on the lyric "Now the Final Solution can be applied" - a bit chilling, if it is indeed referencing the infamous "Final Solution" of WWII.

Southampton Dock, up next, swings the pendulum the other way - gentle sounds of the sea and equally gentle singing over yet more gentle acoustic guitar, with a strange shouting echo of the lyrics played over top (very un-gentle). Stringed instrument supplement this one well, giving the song some real depth of sound. It's slow though - very slow, and very gentle. This song could rock a baby to sleep.

The Final Cut, the titular album track, leads in right where the last track left off - I barely noticed the song had moved over at all. A big gunshot noise out of nowhere punctuates the song something fierce, kicking the singing into overdrive and cranking up the energy of the song. Things taper back down to "pleasantly gentle" quickly enough, and then the song begins a series of high-to-low energy waves that crests in a wailing, despondent guitar solo and fades into soft harp plucking.

Then Not Now John jumps in like a kick to the face with its heavy guitar and explicit, shouty lyrics sung over an accompanying choir. Heavy chugging sounds and hard-hitting drums really intensify the song, much more so than any other on the album. This one feels like a proper rock song, except for the occasional downtempo dip that cuts the energy off at the legs somewhat abruptly. It's shouty, and exciting, and loud - very much the wake-up bump I needed from the songs prior.

The album finishes off with Two Suns In The Sunset (a song disappointingly not about the planet of Tatooine). It goes back to the gentle, sing-song roots of the album, with its sweetened acoustic guitar and quieted singing. Electric guitar jumps in halfway through, and along with screaming sound effects, it keeps you awake through the rest of the song. Some dulcet, almost jazzy saxophone playing wraps things up nicely. As an outro it does a passable job of tapering-off the energy of the album, but as an individual song it's nothing special, being neither particularly catchy nor memorable. 

Overall: This is a passable themed album, but not quite on par with the previous "experience" albums like DSotM or The Wall. It didn't illicit an emotional journey so much as it just depressed the heck out of me. It still felt like a coherent PF album though - unmistakable in tone and sound. But this one just didn't "click" - I found myself forgetting most of the tracks the moment they ended, and with a few exceptions, would have a hard time distinguishing between them. Some tracks, like Your Possible Pasts, could possibly stand on their own, but the rest are so tied together that you really need to listen to the whole album to appreciate them (and as before, this album doesn't quite nail the "experience album" paradigm, which is problematic for a full-listen experience). This one feels like there's less emotion and psychedelia elements, and more of a general "tiredness" behind everything (which admittedly is an emotion, just not one I want when listening to rock music). After the successes of the previous four albums, I doubt that either PF or the general public was especially satisfied with this particular one - I certainly wasn't.