“His finest work since The Dark Side of the Moon”: How David Gilmour made a blockbuster comeback with Luck & Strange – and Ice-T

2024 Year in Review: Almost a decade on from his last studio album, the Pink Floyd veteran released his fifth solo full-length, Luck and Strange, in September, reminding us of his abilities as a master storyteller, melting minds one bluesy bend at a time.

The singer and guitarist went as far as saying it was his finest work since The Dark Side of the Moon.

As well as the Strats we’ve known him to play throughout his career, he also revealed he’d used a Gibson ES-335 for the solo on Dark and Velvet Nights, admitting he didn’t have “a huge history with Gibson guitars” and the recent acquisition was “a very, very different sort of guitar to what I’m used to.”

Elsewhere, in quite possibly the most surprising crossover of 2024, the guitarist guested on Body Count’s cover of Comfortably Numb, noodling the whole way through almost like a backing track.

Gilmour revealed he was originally approached by frontman Ice-T for permission to use the song and ended up offering to play on it.

“I like the new lyrics; they’re talking about the world we’re living in now, which is quite scary,” he later reflected.

Amit has been writing for titles like Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Guitar World for over a decade and counts Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Jeff Beck among his primary influences as a guitar player. He’s worked for magazines like Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Prog, Record Collector, Planet Rock, Rhythm and Bass Player, as well as newspapers like Metro and The Independent, interviewing everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy to Slash and Jimmy Page, and once even traded solos with a member of Slayer on a track released internationally. As a session guitarist, he’s played alongside members of Judas Priest and Uriah Heep in London ensemble Metalworks, as well as handled lead guitars for legends like Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, The Faces) and Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, G3).