Pink Floyd review, ‘Hey Hey, Rise Up’: Band’s first original music in 28 years is a stirring wail of protest

The song marks the band’s first new original music since 1994’s The Division Bell

(Pink Floyd, Press)

The first new Pink Floyd music since the band’s 1994 album The Division Bell is an extraordinary protest song for extraordinary times.

“Hey Hey Rise Up” features original members David Gilmour and Nick Mason along with long-time Floyd bassist Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney on keyboards, but is built primarily around a goosebump-raising vocal performance from Andriy Khlyvnyuk of the Ukrainian band Boombox.

Khlyvnyuk was on tour in the US when the invasion began but returned home to help defend his country. Late in February, the singer posted to Instagram a recording of himself in Kyiv’s Sofiyskaya Square singing the Ukrainian protest song “The Red Viburnum In The Meadow”. Dating from the First World War, the song has been given new relevance since the recent Russian invasion of the country.

Gilmour, who had played a show with Boombox in London in 2015, was so inspired by the performance that he sampled Khlyvnyuk’s vocals and integrated them into this new song, which takes its title from the English translation of the final line: “Hey hey, rise up and rejoice!”

A minute and a half in, Gilmour unleashes a trademark guitar solo that seems to cry out in anguish. This isn’t a guitar gently weeping, but bawling in anger and frustration.

All proceeds from the song will go to support Humanitarian Relief for the people of Ukraine.