Roger Waters, Is This the Life We Really Want? A Review (2017)

Roger Waters, Is This the Life We Really Want? A Review (2017)

By: Ghost Writer

Rock n Roll Animal

Considering that Radiohead's OK Computer is widely seen as the "Dark Side of the Moon"  for a whole new generation, it make a lot of sense that the so called "sixth Radiohead member", producer Nigel Godrich, had to be the man sitting on the recording board for Roger Waters new album Is This The Life We Really Want?, Rogers did a couple of massive shows in Mexico last year, heavily politicized, Waters not only charged against the Mexican government in a moment of social unrest, but also against the fascist menace of Donald Trump who was growing on the polls on the road to the elections in the USA, I can't remember but I didn't watch him charging against Brexit back in his homeland, Brexit might not be about a physical wall, but is about a barrier dividing the European Union, anyway, while I saw Rogers politic stunt as mainly an opportunist gimmick (as his The Wall show in Berlin), I had serious doubts a couple of weeks ago if Waters was going to be able to come up with some exciting new music, or if he was more comfortable reprising his visually grandiose shows and playing his music while amusing us to death with his back catalogue, fortunately, my worst fears started dissipating after a few minutes of the first track of his comeback record, his first in 25 years.   

The legendary author and cofounder of Pink Floyd seems to be back and aiming at making a great record, if not as groundbreaking as his Pink Floyd work, it fits perfectly with our times full of uncertainty as slowly but steady, the records of the Trump Era start displaying that dark existentialist nature of the times, and this record is not the exception, Is This The Life We Really Want? is a conceptual protest record just in typical 70s prog rock fashion, the one with those heavy words I have been wishing to listen since the beginning of the year, I guess is the first time a legendary major figure has made such a big statement against the convoluted times we are living in, gone is the magnificent Bob Ezrin, the exuberant Alan Parsons or the groundbreaking Chris Thomas as producers, but what amazes me the most is that Godrich does a great work fleshing Waters tunes to perfection, giving them the perfect texture, the perfect density, yes at times it reminds me of Radiohead, or his impressive work on Sea Change by Beck, but it´s still unmistakable Waters stuff, When We Were Young starts with the kind of samples and voice snippets that bring PF to mind, is the sort of stuff that sometimes happens within our head when we are in a phase between dream and reality, that´s part of what Waters is all about, inner dialogues opening the doors to madness, the Syd Barret heritance that permeated on Waters best compositions, here, the song works as a slow piece that might remind you of Wish You Were Here, again, unmistakable Waters, who reveals himself here as an amazing storyteller and a great songwriter, capable of making the type of record that someone like Alice Cooper, Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan will kill to make these days, going right into a glorious crescendo on the chorus, an explosion and more and more naked emotions right to the surface, perhaps anticipating the epic grandiosity of his live shows, but the music is where it should be, and the lyrics too, adding the perfect amount of tension into a piece like Deja Vu, a highly dramatic piece that sounds a lot like Five Years from David Bowie's The Rise and the Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, is too close, but perhaps that makes it even better, with Waters coming at his most vulnerable, exploiting the wisdom that years have given to him, and going a bit heavy on the keyboards creating a saturation that becomes disorienting at best.

The Last Refugee opens in epic fashion, tension builds up in a familiar fashion as Waters geopolitical rants drop by, reality becoming a powerful and distorted instrument as the tune moves in a graceful manner, becoming an instant classic by reflecting a harsh part of our global reality and deviating into some of the very well-known excesses of 70s progressive rock, and following that same fashion comes the Animals like Picture That, full of resonant keyboards, is Waters spitting all the venom he is capable of while on a steady rock beat just like a prophet of doom, although there are lots of great songs here, some of them tend to sound familiar, some sound like filler, but hey! It´s Roger Water´s filler, and Broken Bones leave me with that feeling, that it tried to get closer to Waters great acoustic and cathartic songs of the 70s, but ends up sounding a bit like those postmodern narrations by Leonard Cohen, on the title track the Radiohead connection becomes too evident, but you can bet that Waters was Radiohead before Radiohead were Radiohead, his road weary vocals rarely have sounded better as the mad driver of this juggernaut of a song, leaving us ready for Bird In a Gale that is a great fist thrown at modern life and modern rock by one of its most celebrated artists, featuring state of the art production by Gordrich here and then you can complain at Waters for redoing Money in a certain way and naming it Smell the Roses, of course, there are some totally forgettable tracks like The Most Beautiful Girl or Wait For Here, Oceans Apart that is sort of generic Waters stuff, but he reacts and delivers a great closing cryptically named Part of Me Died that serves as a perfect goodbye, perhaps, for one of rocks major enigmatic figures, one who I shall recognize has brought us a very remarkable album that is both exciting and contemporary, we should applaud Waters commitment to making great new music, the only regrettable thing here is that thinking about another 25 years to listen to the next Waters album, is a bit too long.