THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

The year was 1967 and it was a time of experimentation and drugs. A new movement emerged and this musical genre was known as Psychadelic Rock and was more or less Prog's parent. Pink Floyd was of course the leading act in this new musical movement, I won't go further than that, alot of other reviewers has written a good background history for PF.

The band consisted of Roger Waters (Bass), Syd Barrett (Vocals, Guitar and main songwriter), Nick Mason (Drums) and Rick Wright (Keyboards). None of them was really fantastic musicians, but the power of this album didn't lie in musical virtuoso skills or fast solos. The albums main point was the innovative songwriting style of Syd and the studio techniques that was used (this album was recorded in Abbey Road). So it was very much ahead of it's time and had a large influence on future music.

This is the only Pink Floyd album that sounds like this one, and it is because this was the only album where Syd was present (he would be replaced because of his mental condition). There has been alot of speculation around this, and some believe that Syd could write so amazing songs just because he was in that state of mind.

The album starts with the song Astronomy Domine which is clearly about space, the song has alot of sound effects that is done by the studio, and pretty much makes the whole song, I got very amazed by that when I was younger and this album was what introduced me into prog. Of course, I had heard sound effects before, it's not that uncommon, but, by the time I heard this album, I had never heard sound effect work that well with music and actually be a part of the song and not a part of the concept or story around the song.

The three songs after Astronomy Domine (Lucifer Sam, Mathilda Mother and Flaming) is not nearly as good and they feel more like pop songs, they didn't introduce anything groundbreaking for the time and was just regular songs, however, they are not bad by any means, they are just overshadowed by the better songs.

The next song, which is my favorite, is the first song on the album where all four members of the band has been credited for the songwriting. The song is a short Jazz tune, which sounds alot like what Esbjörn Svensson Trio would play 15 years later, I really find it a shame that Pink Floyd didn't play more stuff like this, it's very warm and is a nice break from all psychedelic music.

The next song is the only song on the album that isn't written by Syd, the song is written by Roger and is an attempt at trying to sound like Syd, and we learn from this that this isn't really the right field for Roger (he would find his sound later on). It's not a bad song, but why listen to the master's apprentice when we can listen to the master?

Interstellar Overdrive is the only instrumental song on the album, and starts of with a really rocky riff. The song is also the longest on the album. This was also a very grounbreaking way to play music, note that the year was '67. Beatles had only released their debut album 4 years before this album. So, rock had really evolved during those 4 years.

And now we get to another one of those three poppy song breaks. I don't have anything to add, three decent songs, nothing particular to write about.

The Album ends with Bike which a silly and fun song, a perfect way to end an album like this. This is another song where I love the sound effects, they work even better with the music here than in Astronomy Domine, a great pop tune. It follows the same "form" that KC would use 2 years later on Moonchild (Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus and a musical collage at the end).

I had a hard time deciding if I would give this album 3 or 4 stars, if the "fillers" didn't come in clusters of 3 every time, I would've given this album 4 stars, however, now it isn't like that, so this album gets 3 stars, it's still a good addition to any prog collection since it's so groundbreaking.