THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn is the classic debut album from legendary prog rockers Pink Floyd. It sticks out from the rest of Pink Floyd´s discography as it has Syd Barret on vocals and guitar. Syd had a very fragile mind and had to leave Pink Floyd after this album. He was replaced by David Gilmour who has been with Pink Floyd ever since. Syd Barret had a major role on The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, as his voice is very distinct and his lyrics are very strange. His guitar style is very much rooted in sixties rock, but there are also some pretty inventive things going on here and there like on the spacy opener Astronomy Domine.

The music is very psychadelic with weird lyrics and spaced out sounds on top of more conventional sixties rock. The vocal based tracks like Lucifer Sam, Matilda Mother, Flaming, The Gnome and Bike are all great examples of how Pink Floyd sounded at the time. Astronomy Domine stands out from the rest of the songs at it is a timeless classic. Pink Floyd never made a song like this again and no other band has ever been close. This song is a true progressive classic.

There are some psychadelic jam session tracks here too in Pow R. Toc H. and Interstellar Overdrive where I find the first the most rewarding. Interstellar Overdrive isn´t very exciting to me. It´s way too long and noisy to fit my taste.

The musicianship is good and you can hear that this band has great chemistry ( no pun intended).

The production is actually a very good sixties production. One of the best psychadelic productions from that time.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is a classic psychadelic rock album and it´s essential to that style. I have always enjoyed this album tremendously, but the instrumental noisy tracks never excited me much so I´ll rate the album 4 stars. This is a must hear of course.