The Division Bell is the sound of Pink Floyd putting themselves back together. Released in 1994, it was the band’s second album without Roger Waters — but where its predecessor had felt like a David Gilmour solo record in disguise, this one is a real group effort, with keyboardist Richard Wright fully back in the fold for the first time in years. Warm, spacious and reflective, and built loosely around the theme of communication, it topped the charts around the world. It would also prove to be their last studio album of new music for two decades.

The short version

The Division Bell (1994) is Pink Floyd’s fourteenth album, and their second and last made without Roger Waters. Its big story is the full return of Richard Wright, who had drifted to the edges of the band for over a decade: here he co-wrote several songs, played a central role, and sang lead for the first time on a Floyd album since 1973. The result is the most band-like Pink Floyd record in years, led by David Gilmour and threaded with a loose theme of communication — and its difficulties. Gilmour’s partner, the novelist Polly Samson, co-wrote many of the lyrics, and it was made largely on Gilmour’s houseboat studio with producer Bob Ezrin. It went to number one in both Britain and America, won the band their only Grammy for the instrumental Marooned, and closes with High Hopes, one of their finest later songs.

Talking again

The album grew out of a real reunion. After the strained, Gilmour-dominated A Momentary Lapse of Reason, the three surviving members — Gilmour, Mason and Wright — came together properly in 1993 and simply jammed, building songs collectively in a way they had not managed for twenty years. Wright, who had been sidelined for so long, was restored as a full member, and his keyboards and songwriting shaped the record throughout. As the songs took form, a theme emerged: communication, and the failure of it — between friends, lovers and, unmistakably, estranged bandmates. It was a subject rich with irony for a group so famous for not talking to one another, a point Gilmour happily acknowledged. Even the title came from outside the band: unable to agree on one, they let their friend, the author Douglas Adams, pick the phrase The Division Bell from the closing song.

The sound

The Division Bell sounds unmistakably like Pink Floyd — more so, many felt, than anything since the 1970s. It is built on the band’s classic ingredients: spacious, drifting keyboards, David Gilmour’s long, singing guitar lines, and a slow, patient, atmospheric mood that rewards immersion. With Wright’s keyboards restored to the centre, and Gilmour in fine form on guitar, the record feels warmer and more cohesive than its predecessor, if still wrapped in a certain glossy sheen. It leans reflective and even elegiac, particularly toward the end — less angry than the Waters years, more wistful, and quietly beautiful at its best.

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The songs

The album opens with Cluster One, a slow, atmospheric instrumental that eases the listener in, before What Do You Want from Me, one of the band’s toughest, bluesiest rockers. Marooned, the Grammy-winning centrepiece, is a gorgeous instrumental showcase for Gilmour’s soaring, weeping guitar. Wearing the Inside Out marks Wright’s big moment, a gentle, jazzy song on which he takes the lead vocal for the first time in over twenty years, quietly casting himself as a man returning to the world. Keep Talking, one of the singles, drives along on a funky beat and folds in the synthesized voice of the physicist Stephen Hawking, sampled from a television advert, urging the value of dialogue. And the album closes with High Hopes, a stately, nostalgic epic about youth, memory and the things we lose along the way — complete with a tolling bell and one of Gilmour’s most affecting guitar solos. The cover matches the mood: two vast metal heads facing each other across a field, the space between them forming a third.

Reception and legacy

Critics were lukewarm. Several dismissed The Division Bell as slick and safe, and a few were unkind about Gilmour’s playing. The public disagreed emphatically: the album went straight to number one on both sides of the Atlantic, and the tour that followed was one of the biggest of the decade, later captured on the live album Pulse. In hindsight it is generally seen as a warmer, more cohesive record than A Momentary Lapse of Reason, precisely because it was a true band effort, and songs like High Hopes and Marooned have aged well. It carries an added poignancy now: it was the last Pink Floyd album of all-new material for twenty years, and the last the band made with Richard Wright.

The verdict

The Division Bell is not one of Pink Floyd’s towering achievements, and it is not the album to start with — The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here have that honour. Its lyrics can be gentle to a fault, and a little of its 1990s polish has dated. But it is a warm, atmospheric, often lovely record, and a far more satisfying one than its mixed reviews suggested — the sound of a great band clearly enjoying playing together again. For that alone it is worth hearing; and for High Hopes, its beautiful, elegiac closer, it is worth hearing more than once. As a farewell to their studio career, Pink Floyd could have done a great deal worse.

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