User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info
  • Record Label:
  • Release Date:
The Endless River Image
Metascore
58

Mixed or average reviews - based on 24 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 139 Ratings

  • Summary: The 15th and final full-length studio release from the British rock band features unreleased music from its 1993 Division Bell sessions.
Buy Now
Buy on

Top Track

Talkin' Hawkin'
Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible Mankind's greatest achievements have... See the rest of the song lyrics
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 24
  2. Negative: 4 out of 24
  1. Nov 12, 2014
    100
    If ever an album begs repeated listening, it’s this one, which manages to surprise and reassure at the same time; you’ll want to return to it more than any other post-’83 Floyd album.
  2. Nov 7, 2014
    70
    A suite of mostly instrumental moods and fragments, The Endless River rolls like a requiem through familiar echoes.
  3. Nov 14, 2014
    70
    If the album looks back more than it looks forward, well, its makers have earned the right to a reprise. But then again, it wouldn’t work so well if they hadn’t managed to evoke something timeless all along.
  4. Nov 6, 2014
    60
    People tend to use the phrase “a footnote to their career” in order to damn a record with faint praise, but there’s a sense that a footnote to Pink Floyd’s career may be precisely what The Endless River is supposed to be: not a new album from an extant band, but an echo from the past--or a last, warm but slightly awkward group hug.
  5. Classic Rock Magazine
    Dec 16, 2014
    50
    Overall, too much of The Endless River is suffocated by prog-normative dreariness and a high, conventional varnish. [Dec 2014, p.98]
  6. It’s interesting from a certain geeky perspective, but it's never quite as satisfying or substantial as you want it to be.
  7. 20
    What's blindingly clear is that, without the sparking creativity of a Syd or Roger, all that's left is ghastly faux-psychedelic dinner-party muzak.

See all 24 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 28
  2. Negative: 1 out of 28
  1. Nov 11, 2014
    10
    Amazing, A fine, complex instrumental composition in style of their early work...The music spokes for it self, They finished what they startedAmazing, A fine, complex instrumental composition in style of their early work...The music spokes for it self, They finished what they started years ago...
    If u don't get this album ur not a true Pink Floyd fan!!
    Expand
  2. Jun 2, 2019
    10
    AMOOOO?????? COMO ASSIM A NOTA DESSA PERFEIÇÃO EH 58???????? PORRS QUE SUBESTIMADO :((((((
  3. Nov 10, 2014
    9
    Lyrics have been PF's biggest weakness since the departure of Roger Waters, so when I found out that this album was going to be mostlyLyrics have been PF's biggest weakness since the departure of Roger Waters, so when I found out that this album was going to be mostly instrumental, I was quite excited by the news. What I experienced when I first listened to The Endless River was even better than I hoped for- a very well-designed and executed album of ambient music that evokes the many different phases of Pink Floyd's music, with some emphasis on the earlier styles. It is both simpler and more timeless than I expected. Bravo! Expand
  4. Nov 17, 2014
    7
    OK, first of all I am a Pink Floyd fan and do not side with any particular camp. This album does serve as a proper ending to the legacy.OK, first of all I am a Pink Floyd fan and do not side with any particular camp. This album does serve as a proper ending to the legacy. Why? Well, not because it was particularly well executed, but rather because it closes the book on Floyd. It resolves the band. Many people choose different sides... Syd, Roger, Gilmour... they forget Pink Floyd was a band. Every member contributed, no matter how outspoken or relatively quietly they had participated. In this effort, Gilmour and Mason recognize how important and overlooked Wright was (and please lets not ever forget or overlook Nick!!!!). Life is a series of checks and balances, this album balances the equation, leaving nothing left to say except... "The End. Thanks for stopping by." Expand
  5. Dec 2, 2016
    7
    As a Pink Floyd album, it's not necessary to say that the band have not been able to do something really good since Water's departure. But,As a Pink Floyd album, it's not necessary to say that the band have not been able to do something really good since Water's departure. But, looking deeper to "The endless river" and ignoring its shadow, we find a beautiful ambient work. It's true, Gilmour's guitar work is set far away from its glory days. In contrast, the disappeared Richard Wright offers us a gorgeous keyboard structure, reassuring (for the last time), his place as one of the best keyboardists. I must admit that I couldn't take my tears when I heard the final track "Louder than words", where Pink Floyd sign the end of a successful journey to the dark side of the moon. Expand
  6. Sep 2, 2020
    6
    No llega ni a la sombra de los mejores trabajos musicales de esta legendaria banda, pero es increíble que después de tantísimos años sin sacarNo llega ni a la sombra de los mejores trabajos musicales de esta legendaria banda, pero es increíble que después de tantísimos años sin sacar nada nuevo, vuelvan a estrenar música volviendo a ser bastante exitoso. Las nuevas generaciones no están preparadas para deleitar sus oídos con esto aún. para Expand
  7. Nov 10, 2014
    3
    Fifteen years ago I would have been giddy at the news of a new Pink Floyd album. I'm a Pink Floyd loyalist, but when I heard the news thatFifteen years ago I would have been giddy at the news of a new Pink Floyd album. I'm a Pink Floyd loyalist, but when I heard the news that Floyd was releasing a new album, I sensed it a bit late in the game to have very high expectations for it. In preparation for this "event", I saddled up my Sennheiser headphones, smoked a phat bowl and cranked this album full through. And what I discovered is that Pink Floyd really has become their own parents--and let's not kid ourselves, these "leftovers" from the Division Bell sessions are really just the fruits of Dave Gilmour sitting in a Production studio and mixing his and Rick Wright's tracks from those older sessions.

    The sound is clean and there are flickering moments, like on "Allons-y" and "Talkin' Hawkin'", that take you back to the classic Pink Floyd sound, but they never really get off their feet and the songs trudge slowly to no pay off. If you're hoping for the classic Pink Floyd sound to resurrect itself, you'll be disappointed; and if you are anticipating they would take their music to some new, exciting direction, here again you'd be disappointed.

    There is very little life in these songs and what is there fails due to Gilmour's fading studio skills. Gilmour is simply not that great as a Producer (that was Waters). Especially noticeable in the first half of the album are the airy synthesizers which sound more Yanni than I am comfortable with. Gilmour's guitar lacks the power and volume of his earlier works--the best that I can describe it is that he sounds flat. With classic Floyd, even when Gilmour played quietly, his guitar was still on display and his long tones carried the music. Gilmour used to write solos that made us weep. There is nothing close to that here. I could point to any number of albums of a similar vein from the old Musax or Patchwork Libraries that do this 10 times better, and those albums were written 30 years ago.

    Maybe what this album lacks truly IS LIFE. Division Bell wasn't a great album, either--it was good, yet still many stars better than Endless River. Where those Division Bell songs came to life was when Pink Floyd performed them live. The album that came out of the tour in 1994 was Pulse, among the best live rock albums ever made. Maybe these songs would come to life at a live Floyd show...
    Collapse

See all 28 User Reviews