David Gilmour - Luck and Strange (2024)

Country: UK
Style: Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 6 Sep 2024
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The second half of 2024 was a nightmare for me trying to get anything done, so I missed out on the fifth studio album from Pink Floyd main man Dave Gilmour in September, his first in the nine years since Rattle That Lock in 2015. However, I did hear a couple of tracks from it. Between Two Points, a song featuring his daughter Romany on harp and lead vocals, got good press and I listened online, then Alice Cooper played it and another track I don't recall on his radio show. I remember thinking that it sounded interesting but lost a lot of its impact through a car radio, so wanted to seek it out at home and never got the chance until now.

I've heard a lot of praise for this album but I find it a little inconsistent. The good side is wonderful but some of the other songs are predictable or, worse, just there. I've only listened through three times so maybe some of it will grow on me with future listens, but I've found that threshold to be a pretty safe one on the whole.

Black Cat is just there, opening up the album, but it's only a brief reminder of the Gilmour guitar tone to set things in motion. Luck and Strange is much better but it sounds exactly like the sort of song we'd expect on a David Gilmour solo album. He plays that fluid guitar with all the sparsity he is renowned for, delivering only the few notes that he feels the track needs but every one of them perfect in every way. He also sings in a voice that's almost as recognisable nowadays as his guitar tone. Given that the piano and organ come courtesy of Pink Floyd's Richard Wright, who recorded his parts in 2007, a year before his death, it's not unfair to think of it as a latter day Floyd song.

The Piper's Call is where things start to change and that's a good thing. It's an introspective piece from the outset, but it gets interesting musically around the minute mark and continues to build for another four. It starts getting heavy three and a half minutes in, Gilmour getting delightfully jagged and bluesy. Steve Gadd's drums grow too and there's a real emphasis by the time its done. This last minute and a half may be my favourite part of the whole album, matched only by another rock out in the second half of Dark and Velvet Nights. The longer The Piper's Call runs, the more I like it.

Gilmour turns down the emphasis on A Single Spark but the drums, this time by Adam Betts, make it feel commanding. It's never particularly fast or heavy but it demands our attention, especially when some percussion that sounds rather like corporal punishment arrives a couple of minutes in. Dark and Velvet Nights carries that command forward before it rocks out, but it's also jaunty in a way I didn't expect from Gilmour. It's almost reggae in structure, if not tone, and moves back into more traditional blues rock jam territory as it goes.

In between those two songs is Vita Brevis, a palate cleansing sub sixty second interlude to set the stage for the highlight song, which is Between Two Points. This is an unusual song for two reasons. For one, it's not a Dave Gilmour original, because it's a cover of a Montgolfier Brother song. I had no idea who they were and imagined them to be a deep cut psych band from the late sixties. They turn out instead to be a British dream pop duo and this track was on their 1999 debut album. Also, Gilmour doesn't sing it, handing the mike over to his daughter Romany, who was only twenty-two at the time. She makes it haunting, the sort of song that can pass right by us but also never leave us alone.

She does a fantastic job, her lead vocal as much a highlight as her dad's guitar solo. It may be easy to look past her contribution on harp but it becomes more obvious with each listen, adding a Kate Bush touch that isn't there in the vocals. She takes a straightforward approach there, refusing to do anything flash and making all the more impact because of that decision. I can't be the only one listening who wishes that they collaborate more often. She sings backup on a few other songs but I couldn't isolate where. She also sings on Yes, I Have Ghosts, a bonus track on some editions, but in duet with her father's warm voice.

It's almost surprising after these more interesting songs for the album to drift into conventional territory as it wraps up. Sings and Scattered aren't bad at all, but they feel unimaginative in this company. They're both soft songs that intend to showcase Gilmour's voice against keyboard swells and growing backgrounds. There are interesting moments, like when Scattered suddenly finds an experimental urge around the three minute mark, but mostly they're just there and that's an odd way to wrap up an album that took Gilmour onto new and generally successful musical ground.

They mean that, while I was leaning towards an 8/10 for Luck and Strange, I think I have to lower it to a 7/10. Had it ended after Dark and Velvet Nights, it would have felt a bit short at a breath over half an hour but it would have been stronger and I'd have been happy to stay with that 8/10. Add in the folky Yes, I Have Ghosts as a closer, with its violins and hints at Leonard Cohen, and that would be a surety.