The Piper at the Gates of Dawn review

Pink Floyd's first album, back when Syd Barrett was the leader of the band. Interestingly named after a chapter from The Wind in the Willows, judging by the album cover alone this is going to be a very psychedelic and trippy album.

Tracks:

1. Astronomy Domine: 9/10 this delightfully weird mixture of abstract lyrics and wonderfully insane music may not make that much sense and be full of overlapping sounds but it hypnotises the listener very quickly.

2. Lucifer Sam: 7/10 less striking, but it's blunt refusal to make any sense or follow any conventions add to the experience.

3. Matilda Mother: 9/10 basically fairy tales on drugs. And it's obscure, crazy and quite, quite brilliant.

4. Flaming: 9/10 I'd find it incredibly difficult not to like a song which actually uses wind up toys as an instrument and thanks to the overwhelming and intoxicating music combined with the enigmatic lyrics the song is impossible to dislike in general.

5. Pow R Toc H: 7/10 one of Pink Floyd's many instrumentals. It's less dramatic than many of them and sounds like it was recorded in a jungle thanks to all the bizarre vocalising but as always there's plenty of musical wizardry to behold.

6. Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk: 8/10 a Roger Waters song, some of the notes sound like brakes screeching instead of guitars but mostly this is pretty effective and doesn't lose momentum.

7. Interstellar Overdrive: 9/10 nearly 10 minutes of glorious madness. This excellent instrumental seems made for an epic science fiction battle scene and would work brilliantly in a film.

8. The Gnome: 8/10 it's as random as ever but just embrace the madness. You'll be glad you did.

9. Chapter 24: 7/10 this one's a bit less successful but it's overwhelming, gripping and delightfully bonkers still.

10. The Scarecrow: 8/10 a melancholy and touching song which feels like a poem touching on important universal themes.

11. Bike: 8/10 the album closer brings together everything that has made the album work into a satisfying whole. The last instrumental section is particularly brilliant.

Best song: Interstellar Overdrive
Worst song: Pow R Toc H

Summary: It may not be as good as The Dark Side of the Moon, but it's alarming how close it gets. Gloriously played, beautifully written and madder than a shark surfing down the New York subway while playing a harmonica and listening to classical music, this is an astonishingly good debut. The truth is, it's very sad that this was the only Pink Floyd album led by Syd Barrett since this shows he was incredibly talented. Some of their later stuff is slightly more refined, but this early Pink Floyd material is so crazy, so unconventional and yet still so entertaining that it is arguably just as essential.


Final rating: 9/10