Prog rock legends Pink Floyd have just released a new album. If that’s not enough to excite even the most casual of Floyd fans, consider that The Endless River, as the new record is titled, is the first studio release since 1994’s The Division Bell and is primarily comprised of unreleased material recorded during sessions for the latter.
In addition, The Endless River is also the group’s first release since the death of keyboardist Richard Wright in 2008. Throw in the fact that the album is almost entirely instrumental, and was released with minimal pre-promotion (and not even bringing into the equation the tired ‘It isn’t Pink Floyd with Roger Waters’ argument), and the circumstances surrounding the group’s fifteenth record are intriguing, to say the least.
So, for a band with such a formidable discography, will The Endless River prove to be a substantially fitting bookend to an illustrious career, and an apt tribute to Wright’s legacy? Or does The Endless River risk compromising Pink Floyd’s past work, threatening to undo their inimitable reputation in one misadvised venture down memory lane?
Don’t hasten to pass The Endless River off as The Division Bell 2. Musically, this new album represents much more than an assemblage of twenty-year old outtakes. In fact, within the distinctively Floydian soundscapes of The Endless River, it is The Division Bell that is surprisingly one of the least-recognisable of the band’s previous output.
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You need only to listen to Nick Mason’s steady, persistent drumming on ‘It’s What We Do’, for instance, or to take in the track’s sustained organ notes and the cry of Gilmour’s lone, melancholy guitar, to be transported back to Wish You Were Here’s episodic masterpiece ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’. Likewise, the disjointed, astral meanderings of ‘Sum’ recall the dark urgency of The Dark Side Of The Moon, as Gilmour’s instrument not so much howls as moodily laments.
One of the great joys of The Endless River is in the way it brings together, in a way sure to appeal to longstanding fans, a miasmic flow of notes, beats, keys and soundscapes that reference the group’s imposing back catalogue, whilst simultaneously standing alone as ‘new’ material more than worthy of being heard after two decades in the vault.
It’s louder than words/the sum of our parts/the beat of our hearts, Gilmour sings on ‘Louder Than Words’. With lyrics reportedly written by Gilmour’s wife Polly Samson, the words might well pertain to the couple’s romantic relationship. But listen closer and it’s hard not to see ‘Louder Than Words’, the final song of the album, as the summation not only of The Endless River but of the band itself. We bitch and we fight the guitarist sings, before alluding earnestly to These times together/Rain or shine/Or stormy weather, forming an apt analogy for the group’s tempestuous relationships.
Unfortunately, the only track on The Endless River to contain lyrics puts them to overt use, with the message of the track subsequently coming across about as subtly as a sledgehammer. “Louder Than Words”, with its continual mawkish call to the beat of our hearts, lacks the same self-referential subtleness found throughout the rest of the record.
Instrumentally, all is not lost, with Wright’s delicate keys and Mason’s dependable hi-hat rhythm anchoring the song and the female backing vocals providing a melodic richness. Nevertheless, ‘Louder Than Words’ remains a clumsy and underwhelming finale that undermines the instrumental nuances at work elsewhere on The Endless River.
Initially The Endless River risks being a potentially alienating listen given its form – just under an hour of virtually vocal-free material. But this structure is actually a subtle organisation of instrumentation that guides the listener through the record’s various moods.
The layout creates four distinct pieces of music for each of the four ‘sides’ of the album, and the result is a listening experience that despite the experimental nature of the material, retains a sense of cohesiveness and narrative .
Plus, Side Three in particular really fucking rocks. Beginning with the gentle keys and sonic experimentation of ‘The Lost Art Of Conversation’, the piece then moves into ‘On Noodle St’, where one might imagine the spectre of Roger Waters lingers in the slow funk bass line.
‘Night Light’ takes dark sonic wanderings as an ephemeral interlude, allowing the momentum of ‘Allons-Y (1)’ to burst out as the most gutsy moment of the album. This interplay of restraint and release continues with theorgan-drenched ‘Autumn 68’ – (a sombre follow-up to ‘Summer 68’ from 1970’s Atom Heart Mother) and the electrified “Allons-Y (2)”, before culminating in the indomitable ‘Talkin’ Hawkin’, complete with guest vocals (for want of a better expression) from Stephen Hawkin himself. Basically, the entire collection of Side Three is approximately ten minutes of classic Pink Floyd awesomeness.
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There’s an undoubtable sadness in the knowledge that The Endless River forms a swansong to the late, great Richard Wright, but the album succeeds in forming a fitting showcase to the talents of this incredible musician. Whether it’s in the portentous minor chords of the piano that drives ‘Talkin’ Hawkin”, or the eerie, minimal notes of ‘Unsung’, Wright’s deft touch is everywhere.
His ghost hovers beatifically over the record, never dominating but always lending a subtle illumination.
Case in point, the heartrendingly beautiful keys that form ‘Anisina’, perhaps the album’s most sublimely emotive song, that perfectly interweaves Wright’s playing with Gilmour’s soaring guitar work. With a warm, nostalgic opening chord sequence that bears more than a slight resemblance to Dark Side Of The Moon’s ‘Us And Them’, one of Wright’s most well known compositions, the track ensures that the memory of Wright lingers long in his music.
Inevitably, stalwart rock groups face the dilemma, as Neil Young so coolly put it, of whether it is better to burn out than to fade away. Thematically and lyrically The Endless River doesn’t pack the power of its predecessors, but instrumentally, the album offers up moments as captivating as any of Pink Floyd’s best work.
In their latest and most probably last incarnation, Pink Floyd have given us the gift of The Endless River, an album of both entrancing and elegiac tracks that forms a befitting coda for one of music’s most influential bands.
The Endless River is out now via Sony Records
