2014’s The Endless River takes its title from a line in the previous album’s “High Hopes” that effectively communicates that this one is by and large nothing more than an addendum to The Division Bell. It was assembled mostly from outtakes and jam sessions from Bell sessions that were massaged into one last album in the years following keyboardist Richard Wright’s passing in 2008. The vast majority of the album consists of a single extended instrumental suite that takes up three out of four sides of the double LP, along with most of side four. I can generally recommend it as good, if understandable why none of it made it onto Division Bell.

But whoof, that last song.

Have you ever wanted to hear an 80 year old man say “We b****h and we fight, dis each other on sight” because his 50 year old wife told him to? Because that’s what you’re going to get on “Louder Than Words”, Polly Samson’s attempt to supplant High Hopes by writing another ballad about the importance of the friendship that once existed between her husband and Roger Waters. “Louder” is not just my least favorite song on the album, not just my least favorite Pink Floyd song, if the AV Club ever had me on to do Hatesongs it would be my pick. It singlehandedly drags down the whole album for me. Can’t imagine anyone liking it, can’t imagine what possessed Gilmour to add it to the album.

River also includes a handful of bonus tracks on most pressings, and I generally consider the guitar jam “Nervana” to be the best part of it. It doesn’t sound like any other Pink Floyd song in the best way, and after three albums of the Gilmour-led era that’s a mercy.

When this album came out I was living with my father. I stayed up all night to hear it the second it hit Spotify, then quietly remained awake so that when he woke up a few hours later we could listen to it together over breakfast. I may sound down on it in this thread but I dearly love it for that; It’s the only Pink Floyd album release I have any memory of.