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Pink Floyd's farewell album set for release

November 6, 2014

The Endless River - Pink Floyd's first studio album in 20 years - will be the finale for the British group that has left a permanent mark on the history of popular rock. The album's initial release is set for Friday.

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Image: Warnermusic

When the album is released, it will be "the last thing that will be out from us," Pink Floyd lead guitarist and singer David Gilmour told the BBC about The Endless River in a recent interview.

Starting in 1965, the Cambridge-based band became one of the most commercially successful bands in the history of popular music, selling tens of millions of copies of albums such as Animals, Wish You Were Here, Meddle, and The Dark Side of the Moon.

But the the band that filled stadiums over decades did not write any new songs for the album, opting instead to dust off unreleased material from The Division Bell, their last studio release before breaking up in 1994.

The Endless River is instrumental except for the final track, "Louder than Words," a final blend of airy guitar and vocals that matches the album cover, a solitary boatman paddling into the sunset:

With world-weary grace / We've taken our places

It's louder than words / This thing that we do

Most of the music on The Endless River was written by pianist Richard Wright, who died in 2008. The two remaining members of Pink Floyd, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, have said they spent two years on the album.

"There are lots of people who still love listening to [a whole album], a whole piece, all the way through," Gilmour said in a video message released ahead of the album.

"There are ideas there that actually almost can be seen in some of the really early albums, in terms of assembly of music that is not in regular song format," Mason said in the video.

Only two left

The other members of Pink Floyd throughout the years, Roger Waters who left the band acrimoniously in 1985 and Syd Barrett, who left due to mental illness in 1969 and died in 2006, don't feature on The Endless River.

Waters, who was the creative force behind The Wall, dismissed questions about the album, noting that he had left Pink Floyd thirty years ago.

"I have nothing to do with Endless River. Phew! This is not rocket science people, get a grip," he wrote on his Facebook page.

Ongoing legal disputes over royalties and intellectual property have tainted the relationship between Waters and Pink Floyd for decades. The group rejoined once in 2005 at a Live 8 performance in London's Hyde Park.

glb/pfd (AFP, dpa)