(Review originally posted by Nocturnal Hall Magazine. Link to original can be found here: http://nocturnalhall.com/reviews/G/gilmour_look_e.html)
David Gilmour – Rattle That Lock – 8.5/10
DAVID GILMOUR is best known as the guitarist and vocalist of the legendary rock band Pink Floyd. His voice and influential guitar tone have become synonymous with them. However, in addition to performing on every Pink Floyd release from 1968 to 2014, Gilmour has sporadically released four solo albums starting in 1978. His latest release, Rattle That Lock, comes nine years after his previous solo album, On An Island. It also comes one year after the release of the final Pink Floyd album, The Endless River. Rattle That Lock reminds me very much of these other two albums in terms of tone, recording, style, and flow. It starts off with the beautiful 5 A.M.,which is a short instrumental with Gilmour soloing over an orchestra. The album then goes through many different styles, some reminiscent of Pink Floyd, some reminiscent of past solo releases by GILMOUR, and some new altogether. Rattle That Lock and Today are funky tunes, complete with great background vocals and guitar solos. Faces of Stone and Dancing Right In Front Of Me are emotional waltzes with carnival-like tones in the former and heavy guitar riffs in the later. A Boat Lies Waiting is a beautiful tune dedicated to the memory of former Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright. Providing the harmonies on this tune are none other than David Crosby and Graham Nash, who also made an appearance on GILMOUR’s previous album. In Any Tongue might be my favorite song on the album, because of the sheer emotion from GILMOUR’s voice as he depicts the sorrows of wartime. Beauty is an instrumental that is focused on GILMOUR’s guitar playing, and is just as the title of the song says it is. The Girl In The Yellow Dress comes as the biggest surprise, because it is a straight up jazz tune that feels like being in a film noir. The album concludes with the beautiful melodies from the beginning repeated again. GILMOUR took a lot of chances on this album, and that deserves praise. His playing is in top form, as always, and the lyrics provided by himself and by his wife Polly Samson are incredibly well written. It has hints of Pink Floyd while not being a fully-fledged Pink Floyd album. I was very happy to see this happen, because it shows that GILMOUR can continue to challenge himself as a true artist even after all these years.
View of the Sunrise 