THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

Floyd's legendary psychedelic debut album is a fine piece of work but never really to my tastes overall. Apart from the amazing opening in "Astronomy Domine", a longtime favorite track of mine, and the gritty space journey "Interstellar Overdrive", there's not much that stands out to me but neither of the tracks are bad either. Syd Barrett's songwriting is very good throughout and his signature sound and weirdness is at it's best here but I think the band progressed far better with the release of 'A Saucerful of Secrets' a year later, kicking out Barrett due to his excessive use of LSD (his two solo offerings from 1970 are worth checking out though) and recruiting David Gilmour instead forming a new solid path for the band. Nevertheless, this is classic psychedelic music that should be checked out by fans of the genre or perhaps a more curious Floyd fan. 3.5/5