Pink Floyd

The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

A Delicate Musical Tension

Review Score:

(10/10)
Before The Wall, before Wish You Were Here, before Dark Side Of The Moon, before Meddle, before David Gilmour, there was the magical, psychedelic masterpiece that was Piper At The Gates of Dawn. An album which captures Pink Floyd at its most experimental and challenging, Piper At The Gates of Dawn embraces the essence and pushes the limitations of the psychedelic sound. Written almost entirely by guitarist Syd Barret, whose penchant for wild and reckless experimentation extended far beyond the purely musical, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn takes on a life wholly independent of other Pink Floyd albums.

It is a difficult, almost feral, album filled with songs that project a view of the world that is almost childish in its naiivety, and yet, at the same time, maintains a very dark, menacing edginess. It is an album which manages, somehow a very delicate tension between the whimsical and the sinister, a tension which, perhaps, reflects the personal turmoil of Syd Barret himself.

Tough to say what might have transpired had Barret not lost the edge. Perhaps his psychological collapse (brought about by the over-use of psychotropic drugs), was necessitated by the nature of the art he created: a brilliance not made to last, like a star going nova. Conjecture aside, Piper At The Gates of Dawn remains a unique artistic statement, wholly unlike anything that would be produced by the subsequent incarnation of the group following Barret's departure. It is an album which captures, in a very real way, the nature and essence of psychedelic music, and may in fact be the best Pink Floyd album.

[NOTE: for the casual Floyd fan, the incarnation of the band present on Piper At The Gates Of Dawn is the Pink Floyd you know and love in title alone. Consequently, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn make take some getting used to, particularly for those either unfamiliar with late 60's psychedelic rock or those expecting a Darkside-esque album.]

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