A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS

This one kind of catches Floyd in an awkward moment: it's their first album with Gilmour and their last with Barrett, and as such it's unavoidably a bit uneven. Rick Wright (!) contributes two tunes here "Remember a Day" and "See-Saw" that continue the fairy-tale ambience of Piper, if without as much of the dark overtones. Those come roaring to the surface on Roger Water's eastern-sounding drone "Let There Be More Light", great song. More importantly, Waters turns in his best set of pre-Dark Side lyrics on the languidly trippy "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", and the decidedly bizarre "Corporal Clegg" summarizes the ideas behind The Wall a whole decade before that album was even concieved. The madness that threatened to throw Piper off balance has completely CONSUMED this album.

Floyd's musicianship has improved since Piper here too, Wright's keyboards are in full force (including a mellotron, a rare occurence on a Floyd record!) and we get our first taste of Gilmour's brilliant guitar playing although he doesn't really "solo" here.

The 12-minute "A Saucerful of Secrets" is their earliest attempt at a soundscape, the start of it creeps up slowly getting louder and just when it seems unbearable, a wind sound washes away everything but Nick Mason's drum loop, which propels us through the next section: while the others mindlessly slam on theiir instruments, Gilmour summons frightening UFO sounds from his guitar, I think by rapidly moving his slide bar back and forth on the strings. Eventually this all fades into a classically inspired coda that predicts later triumphs. On stage this piece took on a life of it's own and became a FULL BLOWN MONSTER. (listen to the Ummagumma version and you'll see what I mean)

And last but certainly not least, "Jugband Blues" -- Barrett's most schizophrenic track and a fitting epitaph for him. I mean, in light of his subsequent insanity, the insanity of the track is oddly prophetic and more than a little discomforting. Again, not everything here works 100%, but the high points of Saucerful are high enough for me to conclude that it'd be a fine addition to any prog music collection. Four stars.

Share this PINK FLOYD review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to TheGreatGlorph
• Report this review (#55883)
• Buy PINK FLOYD music online with PA partners
• Show all PINK FLOYD MP3/Stream
• Go to PINK FLOYD page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to A Saucerful of Secrets page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for PINK FLOYD related discussions