For those who do not know, Pink Floyd, which consists of Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Syd Barrett, Richard Wright and Nick Mason, is a rock band that formed in London and achieved their fame through its psychedelic music in 1973.
20 years later, several years after the death of the keyboardist-Richard Wright, Pink Floyd has melded together 20 hours of unused sessions from the development of their 1994 record, The Division Bell. Pink Floyd has toyed with the idea of releasing the album before into a double album, one disk of more traditional songs and the other with a more instrumental side, but the idea was quickly outed.
The Endless River being Pink Floyd’s “final album” was undeniably fantastic way to present their previously unreleased music. Although it is very hard to sell it as a new album due to the fact that out of the 18 tracks mostly instrumental tracks on the album, save the final song “Louder Than Words” that actually has lyrics, most of them purposefully echoe past tracks on The Division Bell.
Other than that, the album is almost an hour of fantastic psychedelic jamming that is divided into four distinct (thought unlabeled) movements with moments of great guitar riffs and keys and is described as a homage to Wright. Actually Wright is credited co-writer 11 out of the 18 songs compared to Gilmour who is 15 out of 18 and Mason credited under three.
Mason does have some fleeting moments when he completely shines throughout the album. While Wrights keys and Gilmour’s acoustics are completely sublime with their trademark style. “Ebb and Flow” is the shorter track on the album but allows them to all add their own flare, while “Sum” has a darker feel and just shows how well Wright could create a very creepy atmosphere. “Eyes to Pearls” seems to be the center of the track even with all the odd atmospheric stuff going on around it, but has a great simple acoustic guitar part and “Unsung” can be a really great example of what many expected to hear from Gilmour’s solo release.
This album was really great, but could be stronger in certain areas. The Endless River could be a huge success depending with how it is approached, as a final “goodbye” or just an album where we see Wright and Gilmour shine and occasionally hear something great from Mason.