Review Summary: Home, home again. I like to be here when I can.
The idea of new Pink Floyd material was always going to be more exciting than the actual new Pink Floyd material. Many immediately wrote off the album as derivative and trashy before it was even released, while others waited with baited breath and no small trepidation. Me, well I'll admit to having my slight doubts – 50 minutes of "Cluster One" isn't the most appealing of ideas, even to a rabid Floyd fanatic. And
the Endless River is, for the most part, Floyd by the numbers; a record packing your basic Mason drumbeats, silvey Gilmour guitars and undemanding Wright keyboards that we all know they're capable of in their sleep. So essentially, what's the deal?
To take the cynical path, it's too tempting to write off
the Endless River as just another cash-grab by a band tainting their legacy. Another uninspired, tired final gasp from artists who failed to take Neil Young's advice and faded away as slowly as they could – a story we've all heard time and again. But for old times' sake, if nothing else, wouldn't it be nice to be optimistic about an album again? Not in the "I guess this could be alright" way, but the truly blind and deaf optimism only a true music fanatic knows. Anticipation of an album to the point that it can't possibly live up to the standards you set for it. Anticipation to the point where an album takes nearly godlike status in your mind before you've even heard a note of it. Anticipation until it becomes a reason to work hard until November, to motivate yourself, to start grinning like an idiot at the tiniest tidbit of news. Remember this feeling? Remember when it was every other album? Whether you do or not, I do, and it takes a band as intimate and personal as Pink Floyd to bring that feeling home. To hell with the cliches, and the cynicism – new Pink Floyd music is worth getting tunnel vision over.
This is what makes
the Endless River worth releasing. Despite the sometimes questionable personalities of all the band members, and Waters' ability to continuously write the most depressing lyrics on the face of the earth, the one quality which really sets Pink Floyd apart from their peers is familiarity. I and millions of others have always found that familiar embrace no matter the time, no matter the place, no matter the emotions. Really, it doesn't even matter what you were looking to find in the first place - a sanctuary, a release, a mirror, or anything else – it was always right there, in those textured keyboards and guitars, in those biting lyrics and polished vocals. It's this quality which allows me to look for the positives in
The Endless River - well, in all music I love - no matter how blind it makes me to the negatives. To believe, however naively, that this is truly an album made in honour of an old friend and not just a lame greedy cash-in by old greedy men. To see the homogeneity of the album as cohesion and integrity instead. To see the small but essential breaks from typical Floyd sound as excursions, however slight, into new territory – the way "Skins" boils along with an urgency not felt in the Floyd's music since "Careful With That Axe, Eugene". The way that Gilmour deviates from his tried-and-true style with experiments in E-bow guitar on "Ebb and Flow" and "Night Light". Most importantly of all, the way "Autumn '68" so humbly, so sweetly allows Richard Wright to take complete centre stage with nothing but a church organ and a haunted, almost religious simplicity. I don't believe in judging music based off the merits of the band members as people, I'd always rather focus on the music itself and nothing else, but knowing the sincerity and – yeah, I'm going there – love which went into the composing of
the Endless River makes it worth the while. Every song, every single note, drips with respect for a man who spent his entire career dwarfed by his band members, constantly standing in the wings while Gilmour and Waters battled for the limelight. It's about time Rick got that spotlight.
Even in name
the Endless River is constantly looking back on times gone by, reminiscing with the sliest of nods ("All we have to do is make sure we keep talking", anyone?) Every instinct screams that this is more than a cash-grab, more than one final round of the spitting contest between Gilmour and Waters. The music itself is far from the best that Floyd can do, and no-one's gonna be surprised about that – but conceptually,
the Endless River is the most 'Floyd' Pink Floyd album since
The Dark Side of the Moon. No egotistical battles for control, no snide digs at Waters, no critiques of the state of the music industry. This is music in honour of a man who spent his whole life being bafflingly overlooked – yet even more than that, this is music for a legacy. This is a remembrance, no more or less. A crying shame it may be that "High Hopes" is no longer the swan song of Pink Floyd's career, but for all its cheesy melodrama and a cringe-worthy opening line, "Louder Than Words" is ultimately a fitting successor to that title. "Let's go with the flow, wherever it goes, we're more than alive", Gilmour sings for one last time. More than alive, indeed.
R.I.P. Richard Wright, 1943-2008
