A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS

This album was a huge disappointment to me personally, though I realize the influence it had as pioneer to both soon emerging post-psychedelic musical scene and the acid rock oriented krautrock acts. I had high hopes about the LP when I had just started to find the material of early Pink Floyd. The stunning album covers made promises of a highly aesthetic voyage to the inner realms, this expectation forced with heard live versions of the album compositions and its high appraisals. The major flaws here are in my opinion the following: The shorter tracks are not good as compositions, and the good long tracks have been ruined with sterile studio sounds. I believe there are much better versions of "Set The Controls for The Heart of The Sun" and "A Saucerful of Secrets" on the recordings from their live performances. Even the "Jugband Blues" with late Syd Barrett sounds quite silly, unlike his later solo works at their best. On a whole, I have found the discography of Pink Floyd very unbalanced, reaching sometimes unbelievable heights, then other occasions getting lost either to unpolished psychedelic abstractions or over produced bluesy boredom.