The Division Bell

Pink Floyd - The Division Bell

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Manufacturer: Sony
Release Date: 1994-04-05

36 %

Review
As Roger Waters's solo career set into a sunset of suspiciously self-serving Wall revivals and compelling if modest-selling solo efforts, his former band became one of the few outfits in the soft live market of the 1990s to burnish its stadium-filling appeal. But their recorded output wasn't quite so rosy. As all post-Dark Side of the Moon albums must have a Big Important Theme, The Division Bell is vaguely about levels of separation (did you say, duh!?), with more than one not-so-opaque lyrical jab at the estranged Waters. But there's a sense that the band may have put more thought into its trademark audio gimmickry (well represented here by the actual sound of the earth's crust cracking--you don't get that on Rage Against the Machine albums!--and a "spoken" intro by Dr. Stephen Hawking, or rather his voice synthesizer) than it did into its songs this time around. The opening "Cluster One" has a hypnotic minimalist lure that dissolves all too quickly into the bluesy waffle of "What Do You Want From Me," while Floyd Mach III leader Dave Gilmour's usually lyrical guitar work is uninspired throughout, a definite Floydian slip. Still, the band maddeningly manages a few moments of the old grandeur here and there. The Division Bell is not a great Pink Floyd album, but an all-too-fallible simulation. --Jerry McCulley

Related Albums
A Momentary Lapse of Reason Wish You Were Here Animals The Wall (Deluxe Packaging Digitally Remastered) Dark Side Of The Moon

Customer Reviews
Summary: A truly great album! Overall Rating: Comment: The Division Bell is my favorite Pink Floyd album. The production is superb, the sequence of songs is perfect; even my teenage daughter fell in love with it and used it as her lullabye CD, sending her off to dreamland every night. The thing that sets Pink Floyd music off from other rock groups, their atmospheric quality (mood music?), is capitalized on this album. I also recommend the concert DVD Pink Floyd - Pulse for a truly FANTASTIC visual experience of this music. The DVD includes concert footage from their Dark Side Of The Moon album, a real bonus. Summary: Farewell Pink Floyd Overall Rating: Comment: This review is a personal tribute for Richard Wright who died this week, for all of us Floyd fans a very sad moment. Since Wish You Were Here, Wright did not composed music for any album of the band; on Animals and The Wall he just graced the music with his excellent and unique Floydian keyboards; he was not on The Final Cut; on A Momentary Lapse of Reason he was a session musician due to some legal details and just played some here and some there; which leave us with The Division Bell, his major return to full composing status: Cluster One, What Do You Want from Me, Marooned, Wearing the Inside Out, Keep Talking. All of them, not only beautiful and elegant songs, but Floydian. I'm very amused when I read some reviews that claim that this is 'soft rock', this is a tremendous musical misconception, comparing Pink Floyd with Hall & Oates, just because the playing is 'soft' or not 'hard'. Look again, the only 'soft' aspect in this album perhaps is Nick Mason's 'soft' drum playing, nothing else. This is indeed a dense album, musically, production wise and in the lyrics. Not only the band is playing in full spirit since Animals, but Floyd is there, now with Wright's important contributions: Marooned shares the same status of ANY Floyd ethereal classic, with its haunting piano, keyboards and guitar; Wearing the Inside Out is in the same vein of Summer 68 and Stay, vintage Floyd songs from the pre-Dark Side era Only for the songs that Wright composed, this album is a must for all Floyd fans; any Roger Waters hardcore fan who thinks he IS Pink Floyd, is missing a whole and huge point of why Pink Floyd is what it is. Marooned won a Grammy for Wright and Gilmour. I rest my case. Other songs like Poles Apart and High Hopes, would be missing a lot without Wright at piano, keyboard, organ and kurzweil command. With Wright gone, a imposible to fill gap leaves Pink Floyd without the secret weapon to construct its typical unique and more than excellent music. A Musical Master who will be missed for the rest of our lives, but will live forever in every meloniac, for all ages to come. Summary: New Floyd Overall Rating: Comment: Musically this product is superior to prior efforts. Concept albums are a throwback to the 70's, and this is an exceptional product about the complexities of relationships. Summary: who is an advocate for fascism here? Overall Rating: Comment: I wonder.... I really do. Who is the advocate for fascism here? Look at the horrible cover for this dreadful CD? Now I'm gonna ask you again: who is the advocate for fascism here? Terrible, horrible people, just gross! Summary: Honestly, it's just O.K. Overall Rating: Comment: Come on let's get honest here. Floyd music post Water's is just regular well polished soft rock. Their is no edge to it at all, not that it is bad but it is not what I would call Floyd worthy. But I guess that is what Pink Floyd is now. Take for example Nick Mason's drumming, it is just a tempo, a beat to keep up with. If you listen to,or watch him perform "Set the Controls..." or "A Saucer Full of Secrets" he was a major player in the sound of Pink Floyd. And really all through every Floyd record to "The Final Cut" Here reduced to that of a session member. If you listen now to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" performed live for example on "Pulse" or any of the live shows Gilmour does now or any recordings from live shows of Floyd, post 1983 It is so polished and soft. Easy to listen to, I must admit, and yes still good, but not the hard rocking song with strong guitars, when they first began to play it in 1974. In the live shows from them it is absolutely rockin'and experimental, along with all their music up untill 1983. Gilmour showed us what he was truely into from his self proclaimed favorite Floyd album "Wish You Were Here" to his self titled solo record to the last two studio albums. It is all just melodic (yet good, I must say)soft rock music but that is all. In no form can you relate this to previous works. No denying what an influence role Waters played in the making of every Floyd album he was associated with. Please don't get the idea that I am bashing Gilmour or the music he has made. But it is undenyably different from, and inferior to, any thing pre 1983. I know that thier are legions of Floyd fans who will not agree for the sake of loyalty to Floyd as a whole. I am, barring none, the biggest Pink Floyd fan of all, but this is just easy listening, soft rock music. >>>---Zen--->

Top Favorite 1. The Wall
2. Pulse
3. Dark Side of The Moon

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