The Endless River
RELEASED: November 7, 2014 / LABEL: Parlophone (UK) Columbia (US) / CHART: 1 (UK) • 3 (US)
“Though Roger Waters had been flying solo since 1985, his absence here feels much more of a problem than before.”
This posthumous tribute to Richard Wright, who passed away in 2008, was largely culled from outtakes from 1994’s The Division Bell… and is best enjoyed as “mood music”.
PINK FLOYD’S FINAL studio album was an assemblage, not a happening. Almost entirely comprised of pretty-but-toothless instrumentals which bleed into each other across four LP sides, it often sounds more new-age than psychedelic, more ambient than prog.
If fans had wanted closure, something to chew on or champion unreservedly, The Endless River fell short. Where was the grit? The uplift? And where were the profound meditations on the human condition? Even the cover art – the work of Egyptian artist Ahmed Emad Eldin after the band’s long-term collaborator Storm Thorgerson died in 2013 – smacked of Floyd-lite.
Though bile-monger-in-chief Roger Waters had been flying solo since 1985, his absence here feels much more problematic than on 1987’s A Momentary Lapse Of Reason or The Division Bell. These Gilmour-helmed, song-based albums used classic Floydian tropes judiciously, but the disembodied, spoken-word voices on The Endless River’s Things Left Unsaid feel crowbarred in. “Look! This is a bit like The Dark Side of The Moon!” says the aural signpost, but the listener feels duped. Similarly, session-player Gilad Atzmon’s deft clarinet and tenor sax contributions on Anisina feel like pretty windowdressing, rather than an inherent and vital part of the composition.