The Endless River

Pink Floyd

Columbia, 2014

http://www.pinkfloyd.com

REVIEW BY: Benjamin Ray

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 11/18/2014

You hate to start a review by listing what something is not, but in this case, it is warranted. This is not a reunion album with Roger Waters. This is not new music, in the strictest sense of the word. This is not a pathetic attempt at a comeback, with a tour to follow. And, most of all, this is not a great album.

What The Endless River represents is finality, a coda playing over the end credits of the Pink Floyd saga. The two remaining members of the band, guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, have outright said this is the final Floyd album. There will be no tour because it's not possible, although Gilmour will have a solo album out in 2015 and embark on a small "old man" tour, according to him. Instead, this album is homage to late keyboardist Richard Wright and to the band as a whole.

The album is comprised of leftover sound snippets from the Division Bell sessions in 1994. Many of them are keyboard solos or slow band jams without a real framework, obviously representing pieces of music that were never finished or came from studio playing in between recording other songs. To these pieces, Gilmour and Mason added or re-recorded guitar and drum tracks, added sound effects and gave it shape, spreading the music out to 17 tracks (many of them under two minutes) and splitting it into four different sections that are somewhat musically linked.

The end result is not as patchwork as it sounds, but it also rarely hits the highs of any previous Floyd album you'd care to name. Part of that assessment, of course, is that the band left such a legacy that it would be impossible to surpass or even equal, so anything at this point is bound to be a letdown. Part of it is not wanting to accept that this is the end. But another part, the rational side, is simply that an hour's worth of slow keyboard and languid guitar fills, punctuated by the occasional nifty drum part, is an album that frequently sounds like a Pink Floyd cover band, not an organic work of art.

It's not important that all of the songs are instrumental save the final cut "More Than Words." The problem is that there's little tension and release in the way the best Floyd tracks offer. Think of the moment when "One Of These Days" explodes into its keyboard/drum attack halfway through, or Gilmour's solo in "Comfortably Numb," or the surge and sigh of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," or the soaring climax to "High Hopes," and then realize there is so little of that spirit here. It's not the kind of thing one can accomplish by recording guitar fills over a two-minute keyboard snippet.my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

Instead, this harkens back to the movie soundtracks like More and then works its way forward musically through time. The album is peppered with instrumental jams and keyboard tones that strongly recall various Floyd moments. The first suite is a trio of songs (“Things Left Unsaid,” “It’s What We Do” and “Ebb and Flow”) that is a hybrid of Wish You Were Here and the slower moments of Division Bell, with a sort of cinematic feel. The second section turns up the rock a bit, moving through a series of short instrumentals that give drummer Nick Mason a chance to shine (check out “Skins”), the whole thing feeling like 1971’s Meddle, at least until the closing cheesy saxophone-led “Anisina.” One wonders if the band was playing some of those older songs during the recording of Division Bell and then going from there to see when inspiration would strike.

The third section features a series of short, slow mood pieces, coming to life in the Wall-inspired “Allons-y” and closing with an obvious 1994 outtake that uses more of Stephen Hawking’s speech featured in the original “Keep Talking,” but sets it instead to a repetitive jam instead of as dramatic framing for a real song. Actually, that’s pretty much par for this entire album, at least until the closing “Surfacing,” which brings in multi-tracked voices and the background sound of the clanging bell as an introduction to the final cut, “More Than Words.”

The song is fine, with some stately piano work and lyrics that defend the all instrumental approach (and perhaps offers a brief curmudgeonly middle finger to Waters): "We bitch and we fight / Diss each other on sight / But this thing we do…is louder than words.” Much like Division Bell, the words are seemingly talking about a marriage (“The sum of our parts / The beat of our hearts / Is louder than words”), but it could easily be read as a history of the band.  The thing is, Gilmour is right about the music being louder than the words; casual fans may only care about "Money" and that one disco song about bricks or some shit, but those who love the band knows that their instrumental interplay has been the real reason we have tuned in since 1967.

And that's what makes this a coda. Taken all together, it's a musical look back at the band's entire career and a touching tribute of sorts to Wright, who gets a starring role here, with Gilmour's liquid, languorous guitar the best supporting actor. Mason holds up his end too, even getting a brief turn to pound away in the too brief "Skins," but it's Wright's show throughout.

It's a pity that this isn't a better album. It works as background music and may even be good for some planetarium shows and documentaries, but it never really breaks out of its editing room floor leftover feel, nor does its lack of drama make the listener feel they need to hear it that often. But, believe it or not, this is the album that Gilmour and Mason needed to make to put Floyd to rest and move on, and it's a fitting and appropriate overview and endgame to a 47-year career. Don't go into it expecting much, and you'll discover its subdued charms.

Rating: C

User Rating: Not Yet Rated


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