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Is This The Life We Really Want?

Roger Waters

Is This The Life We Really Want?

Fifth studio album from the Pink Floyd co-founder and first for 25 years produced by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck, U2, R.E.M.)

ADM rating[?]

7.1

Label
Columbia
UK Release date
02/06/2017
US Release date
02/06/2017
  1. 10.0 |   The FT

    Although roughened by age, his voice remains formidable, still able to grip like a vice with a sudden cry of despair or defiance
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  2. 8.2 |   Sputnik Music (staff)

    A fiery indictment of modern affairs, and Waters' best solo album
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  3. 8.1 |   Gig Soup

    This album is just as emotional as his greatest work, and perhaps his darkest yet
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  4. 8.0 |   Spectrum Culture

    Holds its own when placed next to peak-era Floyd
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  5. 8.0 |   All Music

    The key player is producer Nigel Godrich, who gives this a sonic richness evoking late-period Pink Floyd without specifically nodding toward any particular record
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  6. 8.0 |   Drowned In Sound

    A long, sprawling epic that stretches out for it’s slightly-padded running time, but one so full of ideas and intricacies that it’s an easy album to get sucked into
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  7. 8.0 |   Q

    It's exhilarating in both its fury and its craft. Print edition only

  8. 8.0 |   Uncut

    A final suite of three songs offer a more intimate perspective; a warm, optimistic coda to Waters' apocalyptic reveries. Print edition only

  9. 8.0 |   The Music

    His new solo album sounds inescapably like a modern incarnation of '70s Pink Floyd
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  10. 8.0 |   Rolling Stone

    It's precisely what a Trump-era Roger Waters LP should be
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  11. 7.5 |   Consequence Of Sound

    Twenty-five years later, the Pink Floyd founder returns when the world needs him most
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  12. 7.0 |   Exclaim

    Producer Nigel Godrich, no stranger to helping soundtrack world-weary malaise, keeps Waters in comfortable territory with pianos, string arrangements and acoustic guitars, along with a few unmistakably Floyd-ian arrangements
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  13. 6.9 |   Pitchfork

    They don’t take many risks, but Roger Waters presents some of his most focused songs since the mid-’70s
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  14. 6.0 |   PopMatters

    Not quite a lost Pink Floyd album, but it gives a sense of what they might sound like now. For sure it’s better than The Endless River and it’s one of the best solo albums by a Pink Floyd member
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  15. 6.0 |   The Observer

    The closing suite, starting with Wait for Her, is touchingly honest
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  16. 6.0 |   State

    This has been a work that has been a long time coming but in today’s world it feels vital and necessary
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  17. 6.0 |   The Arts Desk

    The overall mood of angry disillusionment starts to make him sound like rock’s Harold Pinter
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  18. 4.0 |   Mojo

    Too often a combination of slight songcraft and waters' awkward tendency to sound simultaneously angry and platitudinous starts to wear thin. Print edition only

  19. 4.0 |   The Independent

    Nigel Godrich’s production leans too heavily on collaged radio fragments, which tend to swamp the sombre grace that is its most noble characteristic
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Roger Waters: Is This The Life We Really Want?

  • Download full album for just £8.99
  • 1. When We Were Young £0.99
  • 2. Déjà Vu £0.99
  • 3. The Last Refugee £0.99
  • 4. Picture That £0.99
  • 5. Broken Bones £0.99
  • 6. Is This the Life We Really Want? £0.99
  • 7. Bird In A Gale £0.99
  • 8. The Most Beautiful Girl £0.99
  • 9. Smell the Roses £0.99
  • 10. Wait for Her £0.99
  • 11. Oceans Apart £0.99
  • 12. Part of Me Died £0.99
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