Roger Waters begins his reinterpretation of Dark Side of the Moon -- the 1973 Pink Floyd album that became so big it eclipsed the band itself, as well as its author -- by reciting the lyrics to "Free Four," a song from Floyd's 1972 LP Obscured by Clouds, a record released while they were working on Dark Side. "Free Four" is loose, even shambling, its jauntiness countering the gloom of Waters' obsession with creeping death. Here, it's heard in favor of the table-setting instrumental "Speak to Me," one of many instances on The Dark Side of the Moon Redux where Waters relies on words, not music. Such a shift in emphasis is correlated with Waters' shift in perspective. Revisiting his meditation on mortality as he nears 80, Waters isn't interested in masking his meaning: He wants his words to be heard clearly and correctly, unencumbered by such frills as guitar solos, wordless vocals, rumbling rhythms, shifting tempos, or excursions into the ether fueled by sound effects and aural snippets. The Dark Side of the Moon Redux doesn't offer uninterrupted talk but the stress is placed firmly on the words, to the point that "The Great Gig in the Sky" doesn't float weightlessly: It's now about a letter Waters wrote to the assistant of Donald Hall when the poet was in his last days. It's a subtle change but it's a substantial one, turning Dark Side of the Moon into a voyage inward, not outward. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine