A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS

This is one of Pink Floyd's weaker albums, if truth be told. Yet although the rating may look harsh, I think it is justified considering how much better the band would eventually become. "A Saucerful of Secrets" is the groups second effort, and something of a transitional album. The bands founder and leader Syd Barrett had so soon lost his spark, his mentality and focus had began to deteriorate due to excessive drug taking and was no longer fit to be part of the band.

Pink Floyd would later go on to be possibly the biggest band in the world, releasing some of the greatest records known to man, but here they had a few problems. Syd barretts departure had come as a huge blow,he had been Floyd's main songwriter, guitarist and singer and losing him had left the band in a struggle. Barrett was soon to be replaced by David Gilmour, who took over guitar and vocals. But although Gilmour was an excellent singer and his guitar playing would later prove to be iconic, he was no songwriter. And "A Saucerful of Secrets" does suffer from this.

Rick Wright contributed two songs for the album, "See-saw" and "Remember a day", while they are both dreamy, very sixties sounding tracks, they are both terribly weak and Wright would later admit "I cringe at some of my earlier songs such as Remember a day", Yet this was a sort of trial and error period for the band and it was necessary for them to try out different things. "Corporal Clegg" however is by far the worst track on the album, written (surprisingly perhaps) by Roger Waters.

There are better tracks on the album though, the opener "Let there be more light" starts with a great riff and Gilmour proves that he has potential to be a great singer, it is a straight forward rocker and one of the more enjoyable early Floyd tracks. The title track is ambitious, and although it has it's moments (particularly the ominous vocal outro) it was later improved live a good deal (check out live at pompeii). The greatest track on the album though is Waters' composition "Set the controls for the heart of the sun" wonderful lyrics, and a great theme. Although out of the band by this point,one Barrett composition still made it onto the album, the downbeat "Jugband blues", which although not a bad song, Barrett had done much better.

Pink Floyd losing Barrett may be a sad story, but if he had stayed with the band, they may never have become as breathtaking as they were on "Wish You Were Here" or "The Dark Side of the Moon" but it did take them a long time to reach that point.