Trollheart

So what's the verdict? Well I'll get to that in just a moment. But first I'd like to reiterate what I said above in the actual review, and that is that I don't hear anything here that could have ended up on The Division Bell, other than maybe the closer. For me, this sounds more like unused material from everything from Dark Side of the Moon to The Wall. I find it hard to believe that in 1994, working on what was to be their final proper album, Gilmour, Wright and Mason were thinking about and writing in the style of music they had produced two decades earlier. Far from making me want to revisit The Division Bell, it's more Wish You Were Here that's playing in my mind, and that album I want to listen to now. Famed as the band who put the experiment in musical experimentation, it seems unlikely they would still be stuck in that old seventies groove. But the music here mostly reflects that, to me anyway. If someone had given me this on disc, told me it was unused material from a session for an album and asked me to guess which album, I'd be going for Wish You Were Here with maybe Dark Side as a possibility. I would never in a million years have guessed it was from the recording sessions for The Division Bell.

The music is really great, but with Pink Floyd really great is not good enough, and given that this is to be their final album, I think they really shortchanged the fans here. If they wanted to put out one more record before disappearing “far away, across the field”, then they should, in my opinion, have written something totally new, something that would stand to them and that would have made a fitting tribute and end to their over forty years in the music business. Pink Floyd almost single-handedly invented the idea of crossing from psychedelic to progressive rock, and for them to bring the curtain down in such a, well, uninspiring way is a real disappointment.

Of course, I had to some degree made up my mind about this album before listening to it: the idea of “a load of stuff that wasn't used now being put out” did not sit well with me, and it felt like the remaining members of Floyd were scraping the bottom of the barrel and slapping it on a disc, hoping to sell it rather than throw it out. To be fair, had they done this and then offered the album for download totally free, that might not have been so bad - we have these tracks, we didn't think they were that good but you might like them so here you go - but they expect people to pay for these, and in fact there are two versions of the album, a deluxe one with two extra tracks plus bonus videos, which no doubt costs more. So to again return to Dark Side, they're giving none away.

But I must say I do like the music. It does wander and meander, somewhat like the river in the title, and ideas seem to be half-formed, in some cases just getting going when they're over, in others more or less staggering along, kind of lost and unable to find their way back. Some of it certainly deserves the title of the ninth track, “On Noodle Street”, as it is pointless jamming and experimenting. It's almost, in some ways, like the tuneup before the show, except that this is the show! But some of the music is really good, just a pity it doesn't go anywhere. I see why Gilmour says it needs to be listened to in one sitting though.

He says this is the last Floyd album, that there'll be no more. Well that's no surprise. With the passing of Richard Wright and the Satan-skating-to-work possibility of Waters ever rejoining, another Pink Floyd album is about as likely as a new Beatles one. Which is why the news that there was a new one was initially greeted with much skepticism, then excitement, then disappointment when we learned what the “new” album consisted of. It is I feel a little harsh of Gilmour (and let's be honest: Floyd has been Gilmour for quite a while now) to end his career on this somewhat sour and commercial note. For a band who struggled to make it, then became bigger than most other bands and passed into music history, it's a sad end I feel and something of a middle finger to the fans. I thought Roger Waters was the one who had contempt for his followers?

In the end though, what I write here will not change your opinion. If you like The Endless River then you'll like it and if you hate it you'll hate it. Me? I think it's okay; certainly has its moments but they're a little too far spaced out among the wide variety of tracks here to make any real impact on me. As an album, and purely taking it on track numbers, it's good value at eighteen tracks, though the whole thing only clocks in at a total of just over fifty-five minutes. For a double album that's pretty short, and for an album that rings down the curtain on forty-five years of music it's hardly inspiring.

It's even hard to see this as a Pink Floyd album, as much of the time it really does not sound like them. Floyd had instrumental tracks sure, but they were never what anyone would call ambient: their instrumentals had a hard, bitter edge. Think “Any Colour You Like”, “Marooned” or even the instrumental majority of “Shine On.” There's an anger there, a sense of frustration, of loss and of exasperation. I don't hear that here. It sounds more like Floyd have settled nicely into their retirement and are content to sit back and watch the grass grow, happy that there are no lunatics on it anymore.

This could have been so much more. But for what it is, I have to give them credit. It is very good. Mostly. But they're kind of standing on the shoulders of giants, even if those giants are their own previous albums, and you wonder what would have happened had they not had that elevation? Perhaps they might have faded away, slowly losing relevance in a world that contains too many kids now who ask “Pink who?” Still, they would have retained some of their integrity, I feel. Many people slated The Division Bell, but I enjoyed it, and I think it could have been the proper swan song for Floyd.

But I suppose the important thing for Gilmour and Mason is that The Endless River will supply them with an endless amount of retirement money, and serve to finance their solo careers, or whatever they choose to do in a post-Floyd world. I don't begrudge them their retirement, I just wish they could have bowed out more gracefully, instead of kow-towing to the corporate shills and leaving us with a rather unsettling line from Dark Side to perhaps encompass their feelings towards their fans as they wave goodbye from the tinted windows of their private jet:

“I'm all right Jack, keep your hands off my stack!”

Bon voyage, boys. May the endless river help you to forget when you used to swim against the tide, and not go with the flow.

What would Syd think of it all, I wonder? Or, to paraphrase another progressive rock icon, Van der Graaf Generator, whatever would Roger have said?

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018