Album Review: Pink Floyd - The Endless River

If you told a Pink Floyd fan in 1975 that the band’s swansong would be tweaked B-sides and re-arranged recording sessions without Roger Waters, they’d probably beat you up (or ask you about your time machine).

Thankfully, The Endless River – a primarily instrumental album comprised mainly of David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright’s final jams for 1994’s The Division Bell – feels less like a swansong and more like a final homage. The lack of vocals (save for the album’s closing track) gives the music more freedom, allowing it to speak for itself. Jam sessions are interwoven with layers of ambience and moments of deep tension that come crashing into enormous releases. Still, the band seems to play it safe, falling back into traditional ‘70s prog rock structures.

The soulful bass lines give clarity to the sublime darkness of the record, as sparse, backwards nylon string guitars and layers of synths allow the tracks to fold into one another. The genius of the album lies in the mix, with muted jazz drumming and arena rock dive bombs sitting side-by-side, among other bizarre combinations. Finally, the album leaves its proggy weirdness and musical white noise behind, as a country twang creeps into the final track. While the heavily layered vocals may prove a bit anti-climactic given the unconventionality of the album up to this point, it’s saved by the pure melancholy that resonates in Gilmour’s voice as he says goodbye to Pink Floyd, leaving behind a part of himself.