DRIFT UPON THE SURFACE OF CLOUDS

Pink Floyd – The Endless River Review

No one was more stunned, shocked and surprised at the news of a Pink Floyd album than I was. NONE! Lol! Rick dying put the tin hat on it for me when it was buit a fading memory, an echo if you will of wishes long since past.

I cannot quite believe I got to write this review nor indeed some of the things that I say within its sentences and paragraphs. But, oh boy...I am so glad I did!

Stunned and surprised by so many things, on so many levels and by many different reviewers.

I am sorry to have to say that those that dissed Pink Floyd's latest and last ever album are not even music lovers, let alone dare call themselves Pink Floyd fans!

There was no one out there more so than I that first never expected another Pink Floyd album after Richard Wright died and when first read those words that left me open mouthed, err Pink Floyd to release new album, no one more than I thought it would suck big time...as a Pink Floyd album that is. Well not suck but you know what I mean, further down that any of the 70's or 80's Pink Floyd albums.

I am currently listening to the CD which I had to literally hunt down leaving me in considerable discomfort and pain. Umm I have health issues....yeah long and boring and not going into it here, lol.

I have a couple of borthers into Floyd and I was texting one in particular about what I had heard and that I had currently been into three big supermarket names and they had all sold out!

I never had this much aggravation getting The Division Bell! Hmm but then again me and two other guys were in the record store in Barkingside when the delivery guy walked in with a box. “Oh at last” the store owner said “I have three guys here all waiting for it to arrive” to which me and the other two guys all looked at each other and burst out laughing.

This is better than The Division Bell. There I said it, or rather typed it! I also cannot believe I said that and I certainly did not expect it.

Now what this has about it is a little mix of the modern, I remember thinking of both Marooned, Poles Apart and Keep Talkin' from The Division Bell and a little of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Another Brick In The Wall (shite I should not have said that, law suit anyone?) and Echoes. There will be a couple of tracks I have not heard as yet on the CD, short ones I think, and only one that did not sound like Pink Floyd. Ohh crap you think? Well, no actually. This album manages to miss that crappy track five from The Division Bell entirely and I say that even though a certain Polly Samson wrote one of the tracks?! Yeah I was confused too and still am. However The Division Bell surprised me in not only surpassing A Momentary Lapse of Reason in a great many ways but only had one track I did not like. A Momentary Lapse of Reason had two or three, lol. This has way more tracks than either of those two and yet I cannot find a track I do not like or am tempted to skip.

If I was to say anything negative about this album it is that as I look at the track times there are a lot of very short tracks. I would go as far as stating too many but it can turn out to be that some are really parts of the same...piece, so to speak. After all they did divide these into different...SIDES.

This album is a return to their roots in a big way. There is no over the top edginess like Dogs Of War or Run Like Hell, my two least favourite Floyd tracks, and nothing that sounds like a solo track, again Dogs Of War and On The Turning Away. For me thoughts of Meddle, Wish You Were Here and The Division Bell were everywhere. But those without words. You could say that on The Endless River they were indeed Lost For Words! Oh and how perfect is that? Louder Than Words started as soon as I finished typing that last sentence. And would you look at that? I never once wanted to skip a single track!

Now that last sentence is in the realms of the rules that I tell non Floydian fans is a rule for what is a masterpiece, you never want to skip a track! Despite my love of The Division Bell this is a more complete album with no low points of the former and a lot more high points.

But then like I have always maintained to those uneducated in the Floyd sound and deep in the trenches of Gilmour and Waters, Wright was and is The Pink Floyd Sound!

1 Things Left Unsaid (Richard Wright Speaking, Shine Ony Likey)

2 It's What We Do (More Shine Onny Likey than Track 1! Mind Blowing!! Like Part 2 to 1?!)

3 Ebb and Flow (A little different, made me think of the film Bladerunner)

4 Sum (Hmm think Marooned)

5 Skins (Ahh now then this is older Floyd, noo not Barret lol, Echoes/Pompeii)

6 Unsung (Part 2 of previous)

7 Anisina (Mind Blowingly Gorgeous, makes me think of Dr Carl Sagan and Cosmos)

8 The Lost Art of Conversation (Noodle Part 1)

9 On Noodle Street (Glimmers of Brick)

10 Night Light (Noodle Part 3-Or the one that is different sounding but…good!)

11 Allons-y (Part 1 Another Brick)

12 Autumn '68 (Part 2 Rick On ORGAN)

13 Allons-y (Part 3 Another Brick)

14 Talkin' Hawkin' (Division Bell sounding)

15 Calling (Edgy tones, a little Jarre like, Kevin Spacey)

16 Eyes To Pearls (Haunting Music, hmm cannot think, Obscured?)

17 Surfacing (Hmm...difficult...tricky...)

18 Louder Than Words (Great lyrics and a great piece of music! Comfortably Numb Part 2)

Now after my little breakdown, and before I go back and edit some...stuff, I should remark that I was shocked to see the scores given out regarding the reviews to this album?! All I have to say is mirrored on YouTube by a great many people, including an American I found entertaining in his review...

What the FECK?!

I include all the big names here, even 'Rollin' Stone'! I am sorry but were you listening to the same album as the rest of us?! I think...NOT! Lol!

Hmm perhaps you hurriedly downloaded tracks claiming to be off this album but ended up with someone else's?! LOL!

An American on YouTube simply stated that those who gave it poor scores must be die hard Waters fans or on the payroll?! I was not aware that it had mixed reviews nor had I heard it all the way through and at the best quality.

Its been a month of releases I have been looking forward to in all honesty and so far its been completely upside down. The film X-Men Days of Future Past was...dissapointing and Singer whould hide his head in shame for making the best story in that universe very flat and mediocre. I was also lead to believe by the cover its the best one of the series? Err no! It should have been but was not.

Pink Floyd The Endless River I thought would be utter crap or mediocre and I have an album that on the first listen leapt into fourth spot for Floyd albums! The Division Bell needed a good half a dozen listens before Cluster One, What Do You Want From Me, Poles Apart and Marooned and Wearing The Inside Out ensured its position of fourth! Unfortunately had A Great Day for Freedom been placed as an extra track on the end of the album it would have reached higher still. For me track 5 was not good at all and out of place where it was, disrupting a flow of fantastic musical pieces. The album picks up a little for me before reaching some good highs, no pun intended, with the last two tracks. Coming Back to Life was listenable and the only real mediocre, as opposed to bad with track 5, on the album. Funny how had to tracks had been missing, MISSING, then The Division Bell would have scored HIGHER!

For that last reason is yet another why The Endless River is a far greater thing that I ever dreamed it would be. Despite its elements of Jarre and Oldfield like nuances, hmm did that last bit sound like Dire Straits....nahhh, of which there is nothing wrong with that the entire album is one brilliant listen!

It is indeed this latter reason I keep telling people that this is what makes a classic album. Yes some do bend the rules to make that status...err Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, Ommadawn, Hergest Ridge and Amarok which the four albums have 7, yes SEVEN, tracks between them but they are still 35 minutes long or more and you can still listen to them from beginning to end. The Division Bell was just 11 tracks and I cannot do that, I challenge anyone to state otherwise. No you cannot turn your hearing aid off while you listen! LMAO!

The fact is despite gripes of lack of lyrics or Waters unique voice they have produced something that I for one would have bet a large sum of money, if I am honest, that would have been nowhere near as good as it is. I certainly would not have expected for every single track, and I do mean every single track, to be better than Coming Back to Life from The Division Bell. No that line is not good enough....now...let me think...every track on The Endless River is better than Take It Back!

Also the grumbling about the layout or the instrumentals?! Are you people for real?! You do know this is Pink Floyd, right? I mean surely you have listened to other albums, yes? Not just the last one, The Division Bell?

Righty-ho then lets do a history listen and ask you to look at the layout and tracks of Meddle (70% of the best of the album and guess what? NO SINGING), The Dark Side Of The Moon (yeah OK mostly singing), Wish You Were Here (70% of it no singing!), The Wall (lots of lyrics), Animals (very little and only three tracks!!) and Atom Heart Mother?

My point is that each time they seem to do something new and out of the ordinary and that is kinda what makes them Pink Floyd. With A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell they had these very similar melodic and instrumental slow building pieces of art before crashing in with one hell of a tune in Learning To Fly for the former and What Do You Want From Me for the latter. This time around I was thinking more Shine On but as the tracks went on I thought, no this is going to be different. I must admit that I thought there was going to be two or three tracks with singing. All the way to the last track of track 18 and suddenly singing!

Bloody classic!!

No?!

CLOTH EARS!! LMAO!

As a nod to the Roger fans, well I am one too you know but good music is good music. Amused To Death was a classic and he has yet to give me a follow up! Lol!

I am now listening to The Endless River again and for the fourth time, after a night of debilitating pain that wanted me to pray to a God that does not exist...err just in case?! Lol!

It struck me as the first two tracks of Things Left Unsaid and It's What We Do that not only does this reverberate here with Wish You Were Here but is in actual fact the most complete album since Wish You Were Here that you could possibly achieve without Roger Waters moody vocals. In fact now that I think about it, I have a condition that causes memory issues and always all the wrong ones too, Wish You Were Here had really nothing in the way of Waters the springs to mind? Animals was a total opposite in fact where its much of Waters throughout, albeit always felt a couple of tracks...., err proper tracks from being in that fourth spot permanently.

So yes several of the tracks are part of the same piece, so arguably you could say there are in fact a lot less tracks but longer, so some track times are a little confusing, like three roughly 1.42 minute tracks in a row for instance. Listen to the album without looking at the times and you would not be able to pick out every individual track. Like the true different parts to Shine On You Crazy Diamond once again. No it was not just parts 1 & 2 but the first part was made of of several...pieces.

I also have to add and I found it funny that when I first heard several tracks there were the typical Floyd backdrop sounds that hark back to many other previous albums. At first it struck me as tacky but I was listening to the album piecemeal to get a feel for it. Also not in order either. Yet when I played the album through my Acoustic Energy speakers I never once thought the word 'tacky' and had forgotten all about it.

It all just fits in some secret sauce, melodic and harmonic way from beginning to end and the very last album that could lay claim to that was the very one that was to all intents and purposes a Roger Waters solo album in all but name and intended as the bands last album, The Final Cut. Or as I like to call it Only Half The Wall And Not Nearly As Good But OK. LMFAO!

It is also weird that Louder Than Words similarities to Comfortably Numb only hit me on the seconds listen through a decent pair of speakers of course. For something entirely new sounding and bloody fantastic with it and the one track where I for one think, “Oh crap, Dave?! Sorry Dav-id! You cannot make a track like Anisina and then go 'That's All Folks!?!”

That alone made me think I had better listen to On An Island all the way through and listen out for any solo project he might yet do.

Hmm lets see now a run down then.

Think....

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Marooned

Comfortably Numb

Echoes (Sandwiched perfectly between two bricks and classic as recorded in 1968!)

Another Brick In The Wall (Hint of Run Like Hell)

Keep Talkin' (Hawkin' Keep Yapping!)

High Hopes (Bells)

Have you noticed yet I have not mentioned a single reference to Dark Side Of The Moon? Now this may have been a decision of pure genius as that could have been a step too far and seen as tacky to reference their biggest seller by a long stretch?

So I strongly suggest you listen to it once and I challenge you to walk out of the store without thinking at the very least, 'hmm you know I need to give that a second listen' before buying it if you did not buy it immediately!

This is coming from someone who was the only kid in his school that was into Wish You Were Here and not just Another Brick In The Wall because my classmates were into it. Ten years of age in 1979 amd at the worst time in the world to wait for new Pink Floyd material.

So yeah the wait after The Division Bell was annoying and I have up only when Rick sadly died but...bloody hell dudes. The cutting room floor?! I mean, REALLY?!

LOL.