j.c. maçek iii of popmatters wrote: "without the vocals, something is very clearly missing and the listener is left wanting more. while this makes for a good album, "the endless river" is not quite fitting to serve as the final album of the greatest rock band of their kind, to say nothing of one of the greatest rock bands of any kind ever to perform." andy gill of "the independent" called it "just aimless jamming, one long thread of dave gilmour's guitar against rick wright's pastel keyboards and nick mason's tentative percussion, with nary a melody of any distinction alighted upon for the duration ... without the sparking creativity of a syd or roger, all that's left is ghastly faux-psychedelic dinner-party muzak." the "nme" wrote that "the endless river" was "a collection of spruced-up outtakes ... on those limited terms it works well enough, and it's interesting from a certain geeky perspective, but it's never quite as satisfying or substantial as you want it to be." "pitchfork" wrote that "the endless river" "is quintessentially and self-consciously pink floyd, for better or for worse ... it proves to be one of the few pink floyd releases that sounds like a step backwards, with nothing new to say and no new frontiers to explore." mikael wood of the "los angeles times" called it "so excruciatingly dull (even by pink floyd's often-dull standards) that the band's name on the cover feels like a straight-up bait-and-switch".