Album Review: Pink Floyd - The Endless River

When news first arrived about a proposed new and final Pink Floyd album earlier this year there were high hopes in the air that fans could see David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Nick Mason bury the gigantic hatchet and reconvene for one last offering.

It wasn't a complete long shot, after two decades of bickering the Dark Side Of The Moon line-up (their most loved) joined forces and made nice for the Live 8 charity concert in 2005.

However, the sniping started again as the outspoken and large-headed Roger Waters took The Wall show across the planet for a few lengthy concert tours. Talking trash about Gilmour and his former mates was just another way to get The Wall tour some extra press.

So even the notion of The Endless River seemed like a non-possibilty.

However, it turns out the actual album is basically Gilmour's Division Bell era line-up paying their respects to the late Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright.

While some very idealistic fans were disappointed, this now seemed like a very heartfelt last transmission from Planet Floyd.

Most of the album is comprised of newly revisited scraps from the 1993 Division Bell studio sessions. Several gorgeous black and white photos of the band in the studio help compound this feeling of loss.

Stephen Hawking lends his electronic voice to one of the tracks, a classic crazy idea from a band that made it's way with crazy ideas.

Dark Side Of The Moon? Animals? The Wall? All crazy ideas spread over beautifully engaging music. No wonder the original Pink Floyd singer Syd Barrett had to leave the band, in essence, for being too crazy.

The hauntingly beautiful album closer "Louder Than Words" is the only straight up rock song on the record, acting as a perfect bookend to a wild career. "We bitch and we fight, diss each other on sight, But this thing we do" sings Gilmour and precisely captures the organism of Pink Floyd. The guys were hardly even friends outside of the studio or the stage but they kept coming together in the 70's to create great works of art.

It was an impulse, not a thing created out of love. Strangely the use of the word "diss" leads one to believe that this was indeed written in 1993.

Overall, the sound of the record is more of a soundtrack to an imaginary film. Perhaps tribute film to the late Richard Wright.

It would be a no-brainer for the guys to create a visual accompaniment of the album with a pictorial narrative of the life and times of Richard Wright.

To think that Roger Waters was still not interested in being a part of the final chapter of one of rock and roll's greatest bands is a downright travesty.

I give The Endless River by Pink Floyd 4 Empty Lighthouses out of 5.