Pink Floyd

The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

ACID ON VINYL....

Review Score:

(10/10)
Pink Floyd's debut is helmed by whimsical, drug-addled and notorious original frontman Syd Barrett who not soon after this lost it and, well, you know the rest of the story...but while his presence was there they made the absolute weirdest and original creations ever (to this day) and crafted what is possibly the greatest psychedelic album ever made.

Beginning with the space transmissions and soaring guitar of "Astronomy Domine" with spiraling, hallucinogenic lyrics 'Lime and limpid green the sound surrounds the icy waters underground...' on to the spy film bass licks of "Lucifer Sam" through the childlike, fairy-tale fancy of "Matilda Mother", the dreamy, floating episode of "Flaming", avant-garde stoner hypnosis and hilarity in "Pow R. Toc H.", ominous ruminations on drugs and death in "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk", a one-of-a-kind, strange and dissonant jam "Interstellar Overdrive" complete with mindbending, spellbinding guitar and eerie, trippy chromatic organ work. This is followed by a quirky, ethereal visit to the fantasy world of "The Gnome", the nocturnal, wintry hermetic I-Ching meditations of "Chapter 24", and a lilting melody about a "Scarecrow". Then there's the mischievous lunacy of "Bike" which ends the album with clinking and chiming clock sounds, along with a bizarre sound resembling a rubber duck laughing.

Named after a chapter in one of Syd Barrett's favorite books The Wind in the Willows, this album is a trip in every sense of the word. So, the best advice I can give on this psychedelic album of all psychedelic albums is:

(in the words of Raoul Duke)~"GET IN"

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