Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.David Gilmour remains among the most eloquent of rock guitarists. Opportunities to hear the 78-year-old have grown sporadic, however. His previous solo album, Rattle That Lock, came out in 2015. There has been the odd flicker of activity, such as a stirring turn on a 2022 album by eternal hippy Donovan, but otherwise his Fender Stratocaster has lain silent: publicly, at any rate.The arrival of a new record from the Pink Floyd man is therefore cause for celebration — although the hurrah turns into half a cheer after listening to it. Luck and Strange is embellished by plenty of signature bent notes and piercing solos. But the songcraft struggles to match the expressiveness of Gilmour’s playing. He is not an egotistical performer, yet his guitar is the most absorbing musical element present. We impatiently await its appearance in the spotlight as each song unfolds.He is joined by his novelist wife Polly Samson as lyricist, a song-writing role that she first undertook on Pink Floyd’s 1994 album The Division Bell. Age and mortality are recurrent themes, handled in a rather overblown manner. “Heart beats with fear here in the theatre of my soul,” Gilmour sings in the title track, grizzled voice straining to recapture the grandeur of his Floyd days. The song, an unexceptional bluesy number, finds redemption in the interplay between his guitar and posthumous keyboard vamps from his Floyd bandmate Rick Wright (taken from a jam recorded in Gilmour’s barn in 2007, the year before Wright’s death).The setup mixes the homespun with the high-end. Gilmour’s daughter Romany sings a charmingly limpid lead vocal on “Between Two Points”, a cover of a song by obscure UK indie duo The Montgolfier Brothers. Musicians include venerated US session drummer Steve Gadd. The striking cover artwork, a German Expressionist-style image by Anton Corbijn, imputes a gothic character that is absent from the album.Its songs look back at a vanished era when young guitar-slingers were “six-string masters of an expanding universe”. Old age is rued but also accepted. Domestic contentment is the reward for the passage of years. “Take my arm and walk with me/Once more down this dusty old path,” the guitarist sings in “Scattered”. The mood is mawkish, but a surging solo at the end of the song brings out an underlying note of vigour. The heights are harder to ascend, but they can still be reached.★★★☆☆Released by Legacy Recordings
