By Dylan Thatcher, Contributor 

[SGB Music Limited; 2023]

Rating: 2/10

Key tracks: “Speak to Me”, “Time”, “Us and Them”

If you’ve been dying to hear Roger Waters turn one of the greatest albums of all time into a droning art experiment, this is the album for you. On the other hand, if you’re a die-hard Pink Floyd fan like I am, it’s likely you mourned on October 6th when The Dark Side of the Moon Redux was released. Nobody should be surprised that Waters took it upon himself to rework a nearly perfect album for the sake of making it his, and all his. DSOTM Redux is a stripped down, Waters-centered snooze just like the rest of the Floyd work he’s revisited in the past.

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This album is essentially a The Dark Side Of The Moon spoken word piece that lacks any of the intensity and guts that the original album had. I understand the approach Waters was taking by mellowing out the arrangement, but it’s hard to dismiss that this was likely to make his raspy-voiced monologues (voicing his political persuasions, of course) the focus of the album. In the original DSOTM, the lyrics are surreal and potent, but they are also accompanied by ethereal instrumentation from David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Nick Mason, and Roger Waters. Each musician on that album sits in their pocket and plays with nuance, and when it’s time, they bring the intensity right to the edge of madness without crossing it. In the redux, this ingredient is missing due to the vocals being so prominent in the mix that the instruments have difficulty standing out. This results in a final product that is flat and unconvincing.

Waters’ decisions with this album appear to be made with his interests in mind instead of the interests of the music, which is especially bothersome when an artist is remaking an already fantastic record. A perfect example of this behavior is heard with “Great Gig in the Sky”. In the original recording, this song showcases session singer Clare Torry’s transcendent vocals, making it a quintessential track on the album. However, in the redux, this track features Waters telling the story of his friend’s death in lieu of soulful singing. “Great Gig in the Sky” is a song about the idea of an afterlife, so Waters’ point is clear, but made at a vast musical cost.

All of this isn’t to say that the session playing of DSOTM Redux is poor, it’s actually great. Robert Walter’s piano and organ playing is superb throughout, and was a glimmer of hope in this troubled album, especially during “Time”. The acoustic guitar does give DSOTM a different sound, which is interesting, and there are also some brilliant basslines and string arrangements. It’s just a shame that you have to listen so closely to hear all of this. There would be a lot more respect to give this album had it been an instrumental album with no attachment to Roger Waters. If this were the case, this record would at least have a home in the overhead speakers of college town coffee shops. 

It’s obvious that Roger Waters’ goal is to retell the original story from the perspective of an old man, as he outright says, “The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime” to open the album. To capture the point of view of a withered old man, Waters alters the original lyrics into gristly monologues accentuated by a rustic instrumental arrangement.

He also adds excerpts from his unreleased memoir to the lyrics. In his attempt to reiterate the message of the original album, he strips the audience of the liberty to decipher what each of the songs mean, and instead tries to spell it out for the listener. This decision takes away an aspect of DSOTM that made it amazing in 1973, which is the privilege of interpretation. The real disaster of this is that it seems Waters says nothing at all, even with everything added. 

Overall, Dark Side of the Moon Redux suffers conceptually, dooming it from the start. Roger Waters takes a piece of music history and skews it with his narcissistic vision of what it was really meant to be. There’s not much more to this project. Let’s all agree to forget the redux exists.

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/album/2LywAZA9wrn0VmDYnkp1CU?si=UTdaEWi2SRqsR9vyZVYQUQ