Review: Pink Floyd - The Endless River
By Jordan Matthiass, Contributor
[Columbia; 2014]
Rating: 2.5/10
Key Tracks: “Louder than Words”
A lot of people are thinking, “Why is there a new Pink Floyd album?” Well, that is not an entirely correct question to ask. A more apt inquiry would be, “Why is there a new record by the least notable members of Pink Floyd pretending to be the whole band?” A better question, but still one that doesn’t have a good answer. At least these imposters are also claiming that this will be the last record from ol’ Floyd.
So here we are, listening to David Gilmour’s new album, The Endless River. See, this is not really a Pink Floyd record. The artist attribution is a misnomer. Syd Barrett, of course, is not a part of this. Roger Waters, arguably the main man of Pink Floyd, is (more surprisingly) not a part of this either. This is a David Gilmour album, and we all know how mediocre David Gilmour albums are; just look at The Division Bell.
From start to finish, The Endless River is a boring, meandering mess. Tracks start and finish with seemingly no point or objective. Pink Floyd was always a band with jammy, airy tendencies, but here Gilmour takes the absolute worst of an already-bad genre and fuses it with the futility of ‘80s prog-rock. It sounds as bad as one would imagine. Not only is Barrett rolling in his grave, but Jerry Garcia probably is, too.
Speaking of genres ruined, 2014 Pink Floyd also spits in the face of instrumental and ambient music.
Only one track of 18, “Louder than Words,” includes vocals, and those are so mediocre and the lyrics so poorly written that zombie Floyd probably shouldn’t have even tried.
“The sum of our parts / The beat of our hearts / Is louder than words / Louder than words.”
You’re so deep, Mr. Gilmour. You’re so, so deep. This is a key track because it’s the only one that stands out, not because it’s good. All the others blend so narcotically into one another that picking one out to analyze would be like trying to inspect drops in a (ba-dum-tiss) river.
The Endless River also has this weird tinge of electro-ambiance throughout. Sadly, this is neither fleshed out nor camouflaged enough to make it worthwhile. The generically new-age haze of Pink Dead (or Grateful Floyd--pick your poison) guitar and drum is further cheapened by ugly synth measures that halfheartedly try to provide a modern backbone to this decrepit collection of aborted Division Bell demos. These fail mostly because the band is stuck thinking that plucked strings Casiotone is fashionable.
Everything about this albums screams “Cheese!” The terribly outdated guitar tone, the gross album cover and the simple fact that this is a “Pink Floyd” record. This is the band (at least the remaining members) that made the pseudo-intellectual eye-roller The Dark Side of the Moon, an album that has gone down in history as every stoner’s book of holy verse.
David Gilmour, aka Pink Floyd ‘14, said recently that he believes moden music to be very formulaic. Now, if he thinks all of the creative artists of the modern day are just following trends and making rote, boring music for the masses, then what the hell is he doing? Something much, much worse: destroying the legacy of an important band to make rote, boring music.
