Pink Floyd
The Endless River

More than the last, unexpected album of one of the greatest bands on the planet, “The Endless River” risks going down in history as a trial regarding the intentions of its authors. Many have indeed dwelled on the real necessity of the project, whether it is right or not to release an album of demos or little more as official, whether it was done for “love of money” or for the sincere and passionate memory of the late Wright. Therefore, the “The Trial” of Watersian memory looms over the survivors of a musical idea, almost never faded by time, almost never forced as in the early post-Waters period, when the Floyd released two rather weak albums like “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” and “The Division Bell.” If this “The Endless River” has a great merit, it is precisely that it deserves the label of a manifesto of the last Floyd years, being qualitatively two or three notches above the aforementioned anonymous works of the Gilmour-Mason (and Wright) firm.

“The Endless River” does not propose novelties, does not save music from a presumed stagnant moment, will not be the panacea for all the chronic ills of the music industry. Following the predictable initial boom, it will almost fall into the oblivion of the real and virtual shelves of stores, none of its singles or extracts will be persistently played on the radio. Probably this is its true strength: to sound “old,” to sound Floyd, to sound like the Pink Floyd of the “Post War Dream” would have and should have, granting music the same dignity as Roger Waters’ oppressive (in a dominant sense) lyrics. It is everything a true fetishist of the group would have always wanted to hear: something like “Shine On” (“It’s What We Do”), something like “Saurceful of Secrets” (“Sum” but also “Autumn ’68”), a new “Us And Them” (“Anisina”) and even a “Run Like Hell” (“Allons-Y Part 1 and 2”). Gilmour, Mason, and the good spirit of Wright do what they must do: warm the chilled bones of the fans by the fire, wrapping it in the main theme dear to the group's history: the absence of someone, the melancholy post-loss.

It may not be the best but it is certainly the most sincere and heartfelt of goodbyes. The pursuit of quality and not novelty can sometimes be enough.