kingfisher fan

Quite interesting. The album was derived of when Wright's wife, having clinical depression, tried to drown herself in a pool. It has four 'stages', being childhood, adolescence, depression, and escape from said depression. The concept isn't as coalesced as, say, the Wall, but it's still unique in its own way. The lyrics were mostly written by Anthony Moore, which in my opinion makes it feel a bit less honest (like the Division Bell). Music-wise, not very much crispness to be found in the mix, but I haven't heard a CD or vinyl, just digitally compressed audio. The 90's synths date it a bit, but it's got some ingenious chord progressions (Reaching for the Rail hits hard) and the bass and glitchy drum machines are very nice. Wright's singing is eerie and individual, and Sinead (or 'Shinead', as Rick said in the interview) does an equally excellent job. I like that Irish tinge that she has. However, being a Floyd fan, I always switch to the live version of 'Breakthrough' where Rick sings it instead of Sinead (It's also got Gilmour, lovely). The guitar, for once, does NOT sound like Gilmour. In 'The Night of A Thousand Furry Toys', the guitar solo strikes a disparaged tone that always gets me. As I've said before, the audio is somewhat distant and muffled, which is my biggest gripe. If it was a bit more clear, and was a bit more ambitious with its instrumentation, I think it'd be on par with Dark Side of the Moon! Additionally, I'd like to say that you can definitely tell where the spacelike aspect of the best Floyd albums comes from... no argument about that. And it's not Pink Floyd at all, more like something you'd see from David Bowie in the 90's (Outside and Buddha of Suburbia are good comparisons, as well as his other song Heat from 2013). This album is the first one I've found in a while (nearly half a year) that I've liked. Thanks, Richard.