Roger Waters has never been one to back down from a tough subject. As Pink Floyd’s primary lyricist and rock’s most notorious misanthrope, he’s written concept albums about insanity (1973’s Dark Side of the Moon), absence (1975’s Wish You Were Here), capitalist greed (1977’s Animals), alienation (1979’s The Wall), and war (1983’s The Final Cut). His bleak worldview often jarred with Floyd’s drug-friendly space-rock, but the friction helped make those albums some of the most successful and influential recordings ever made.
It also eventually splintered the band irreparably, and Waters has spent much of his post-Floyd solo career taking potshots at his former bandmates. The feud resolved itself when the group reformed at 2005’s Live 8 benefit concert, and in recent years Waters has seemed kinder and gentler than ever before—at times sounding like he’s downright happy to be here. In other words, Roger Waters hasn’t been acting very much like Roger Waters at all.
His new solo album, however, suggests that while the 73-year-old Waters has certainly mellowed, he still knows how to spit venom when he wants to. The title track, “Is This the Life We Really Want?,” starts with a short sample from a Donald Trump interview (with our nation’s president sounding as cretinous as ever) before Waters’ cracked voice whispers, “The goose has gotten fat/On caviar in fancy bars/And subprime loans/And broken homes.” The song goes on to condemn xenophobia, isolationism, global warming, and reality TV, but it’s mostly a critique of our tendency toward apathy and our failure to become outraged at the everyday injustices of the world.