THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

The debut album by PINK FLOYD is cited by many as being the first progressive rock album to hit the world with all the proggy yumminess the genre has become famous for without straying too far into the world of make believe. In fact i find THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN to be an excellent compromise between the accessible pop oriented psychedelic music that was gracing 1967 like Love, Jefferson Airplane and even the Beatles and the more "out there" truly experimental astral trip varieties of music a la Pärson Sound or Malachi.

*****

Long before "Dark Side Of The Moon" and the 70s second coming of this prolific and most popular of bands was the era when the then students Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Richard Wright and Roger Walters joined forces to unleash their psychedelic fantasies of the day. Right off the bat we are hit hard with the stellar "Astronomy Domine" which is the epitome of Barrett / Wright psychedelic songwriting of this era which takes the psychedelic mood of the day and sends it right into space two years before the actual landing on the moon. The track clearly distinguishes itself from other music of the day by adding unusual chord progressions and by being played through a Binson echo machine to create the desired delay effects.

*****

The album was a hit for me upon first listen and has never grown stale one bit. Although i don't listen to PINK FLOYD as much these days simply because i've heard their albums so many times they have infused themselves in my DNA, when i do feel like hearing a FLOYD classic i usually skip "Dark Side" and the later ones and retreat straight to the beginning where all was beyond Strawberry Fields and dared to venture further out into the far reaches of space rock. Whether they were singing about lime and limpid green or Lucifer Sam, PINK FLOYD relished in creating the most surreal lyrics accompanied by that most British sense of humor which makes this album both bizarre and cute :) If you're looking for that perfect middle ground between the accessibility of the 60s psych world and touches of the truly out there then look no further than PIPER because this album still works for me after many many listens.

PINK FLOYD - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

= 5 STARS *****