UAWIL #168: Pink Floyd - The Division Bell

The Ugly American Werewolf in London Rock Podcast

In 1994, your hosts found themselves finishing their junior year of college when it was announced that Pink Floyd were coming back with a new album, The Division Bell, and a huge tour to promote it. After watching the concert film Delicate Sound of Thunder from the previous tour, The Wolf made it his mission to see them live. And of course, our hosts picked up the album as soon as it came out. But at the time, they found the album disappointing and didn't stand up to it's predecessor, A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

However, as the album turns 30, we can look back at it with a better understanding of how this record stands up in the Pink Floyd catalog. We can appreciate that it was the first time in 20 years that David Gilmour and Rick Wright wrote songs together. We can enjoy David's extraordinary guitar work - how he can pull so much emotion out of each note still floors us to this day. And we can hear the heartbreak and new love found (Coming Back To Life), the hope for a better future (A Great Day For Freedom, Keep Talking) and the bitterness that lingers from their feud with Roger Waters (Poles Apart, Lost For Words).

While some might dismiss this as latter day, Roger-less, not-as-classic Pink Floyd, we found that the tunes were better than we remembered and they conjured memories from a simpler and more wondrous time in our lives. And the memories from the lone time The Wolf ever saw Pink Floyd live help us warm to this record as a gem, albeit a dark horse, in the Pink Floyd catalog.

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