Well it arrived today and I have heard it twice now in full. This music deserves ones full attention for starters and you need to be in the mood for a focused listening session. For more than hour if you can manage it. Get right into the listening state of mind for half and hour before hand. Remove the world totally from your life for two hours and enjoy this in the middle of that time frame.
 
Ambient is the wrong word to use for this. It is far from ambient. They are mostly big band tracks that develop into huge instrumentals. Firstly the quality of the CD itself struck me compared to any download or YouTube stream. It is amazingly pristine and beautifully mixed without a doubt. On another fidelity level all together. You can hear all the detail in the tracks. Out of interest it is mastered to K-14 ref level which is so nice. A great compromise of loudness and transients. Its very dynamic as well going from a whisper to a huge wall of sound. It breathes very well and can pound you against the wall when required. 
 
The ambient sections sometimes appear at the start of tracks and they are immense. A masterclass in soundscape design and taste and interest. Synth soundscapes that are deep and complex with soaring guitar lines and melodies. The sort of stuff I love but they always move into huge things later on. Drums are great all over this CD. A credit to his super taste and playing exactly the right thing. The tracks all segue and it is an amazing journey which is very diverse at times and leads towards the only song Louder then Words right at very end. It is a wonderful climax and epic and is massive to say the least. A lot of this is just classic Floyd and I must say in some areas easily the nicest Floyd material I have heard yet.
 
The overdubbing is exquisite and thoughtful. If these tracks started out as keyboard sessions or ideas, then they have been built upon superbly without a doubt. 
 
I had an idea it might be pretty good but this is a bit of an epic and personally I find with every listen there is something new to be heard. It will survive repeated listening that is for sure.
 
Highly recommended.
 
 

Ooooooh this is good piece of work.  Just reminding any non new Floyd believers.  Some work has been put into this.  Just checked it out in my car too going from Ballarat to Melbourne a nice little over 1 hour drive.  Perfect for listening again.  Sounds great in the car too.
 
This is nicely mastered and to a refreshing -14 db rms mostly all the way through.  It gets quieter in spots and a bit louder too in others but not for long.  I wish many more albums could sit at this level for most of the time.
 
Note, the CD sounds excellent. Better than any download or stream. You are missing out.
 

Jeff Evans
Ooooooh this is good piece of work.  Just reminding any non new Floyd believers.  Some work has been put into this.  Just checked it out in my car too going from Ballarat to Melbourne a nice little over 1 hour drive.  Perfect for listening again.  Sounds great in the car too.
This is nicely mastered and to a refreshing -14 db rms mostly all the way through.  It gets quieter in spots and a bit louder too in others but not for long.  I wish many more albums could sit at this level for most of the time.
Note, the CD sounds excellent. Better than any download or stream. You are missing out.

From a Recording Engineer point of view, it is a good recording. The EQ is well balanced.
From a Pink Floyd fan point of view, the mix is not all that great.
As I listened, it seemed that certain instruments stuck out at the wrong times.
I expected the song to climax to a vocal, but there was no vocal.
This album fails because of lack of vocals.
The original Pink Floyd sound worked because of their unique blend of vocals and instrumentals.  
 
 

I listened to it last night and the night before.  Since I'd already heard about what to expect, I enjoyed it.  I've long ago given up expecting every album put out by any artist to be like what came out before and take everyone as their own.
 
That said, I definitely would have preferred more vocals in there.

It sort of sounds like it needs Roger Waters to complete the picture in a way.  I did enjoy the last song though. But I am also liking this purely from the musical or instrumental point of view. It is different but still sounds great. There is some very tasteful playing on this all over it. 

I had another listen, and I agree the production is great and the playing technically very good. I just can't help feeling that if I wanted to listen to that sort of ambient "soundscape" genre, there are much better examples out there, not least of which is the earlier stuff of Floyd themselves. I think it was during "It's What We Do" when I decided that I might as well be listening to the intro to Shine On You Crazy Diamond, so I did, and I enjoyed that a lot more. 
 
I guess I found it musically dull is what I'm trying to say. The notes and the harmonies themselves didn't really do it for me. Those long sustained synth chords, and all the #11ths, it just sounds a little cliched to me. Maybe I'm just not into the cinematic vibe. It's not that I don't like soothing, ambient music though. Right after the Floyd I headed right over to Elaenia by Floating Points and listened to that. It has that melodic beauty that I wanted The Endless River to have but found lacking. I did appreciate the technical quality of the Floyd album though, it is perfect. 

Jeff Evans
 
Firstly the quality of the CD itself struck me compared to any download or YouTube stream. It is amazingly pristine and beautifully mixed without a doubt. On another fidelity level all together. You can hear all the detail in the tracks. Out of interest it is mastered to K-14 ref level which is so nice. A great compromise of loudness and transients. Its very dynamic as well going from a whisper to a huge wall of sound. It breathes very well and can pound you against the wall when required. 
 

The same can be said about Gilmour's 'On An Island' CD, it's a beautiful piece of recording and engineering. However, after playing it for a couple of weeks I realised, as good as it sounded, I really didn't like any of the songs. That's how I feel about 'The Endless River', it just doesn't 'grab' me musically.