A NICE PAIR

This is one of those albums that popped into my collection after visiting a second hand vinyl shop and i was pleasantly surprised. First the packaging is excellent featuring a beautiful gatefold sleeve with lots of weird quirky pictures to make you wonder what its all about.

The music is really some of the best early Floyd. Ok, we know it is really just the early 2 albums put onto one package but its still irrisistible as a rare look at the Floyd in their raw Barrett incarnation.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn offers the classics that every PF fan adores such as Astronomy Domine (surely one of the most incredible mind trips of the psychedelia era) and Lucifer Sam (strange catchy little thing). It gets weirder with Pow R. Toc H. and Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk. But there is none better to show an example of pure pysch-prog bliss than Interstellar Overdrive. This was the beginning of the prog epics with wonderful effects-laden mysteria, unbeatable and brilliant for its innovative construction and original approach. Syd Barrett was never better than this.

If thats not enough we have the second album to savour, A Saucerful of Secrets, featuring terrific tracks such as Let There Be More Light and the quintessential PF track, Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun.

Its all here in one glorious package. Of course if you already have the 2 early albums, you needn't bother with this, though the packaging is great if you can pick it up for a decent price.

Highly recommended though if you dont have these albums already! I give it 3 stars as there is no new material, but its worth grabbing hold of for collectors and the material alone is worth the price.