Saucerful Of Secrets, A - Pink Floyd

Advantages: At times, brilliant original and quirky
Disadvantages: Not for those of a short attention span. Needs repeated listening

...albums. I decided on A Saucerful Of Secrets, their second album, because (a) This is one of their lesser known early works, yet contains some highly original material, and (b) It heavily features Richard Wright on keyboards, mellotron, trombones and vibraphone as well as featuring 2 of his songs and co-writing others, and (c) It marked an important period of transition, where original guitarist, Syd Barrett had left the band and Dave Gilmour ...
...piano or organ. A Saucerful Of Secrets starts with a great psychedelic opener, Let There Be More Light, a fast bass riff first backed by RW's Farfisa, before this part gives way to the main slower vocal section, half whispered, half chanted with a strong chorus. Finally Dave Gimour's guitar takes up the final part with the song slowly fading into the distance, musically giving the impression of a tolling bell, and lending a haunting atmosphere. ... Read review

Advantages: Pure wisdomically confinied magical build ups erupt into wonderful enthrawling eruptions of enchantments!!
Disadvantages: Syd Barrett's only track jugband blues is heartbreaking,sob,how could the band betray this genious,you will cry i promise you.

...yet haunting track. A saucerful of secrets is Floyd's most haunting,strangest song,mixed with the most vile,haunting and scary instruments to create a nail biting eery mood,forget horr films listen to this it really is scary.Very long and unconsistent though,not for the short attention spans,but......the real magic and treasure is hidden at the back and lingers past the haunted creepy house that Floyd created.The final couple of minutes are so mind ...
...the organ is foced so hard into your brain you can't escape or press stop,you've lost control,this track is so haunting and eerie man i feel so lost gasp and so will you in this brilliant and magical haunted song,or is it a song? See-saw is quite simply Wright's response to the bands antics and history during the 60's.It does'nt take a genious to work out that it's about the life of Syd Barrett and very moving it is to.'Laughter in his sleep','she ... Read review

Darkangelwing: You are clueless... Everything from "Piper" to "The Final Cut" is first rate... Go back to your Monkees albums... Eh... whatever. Still trying to figure out how this site works, but I find it amusing that you write off Roger, when, despite Syd being the founding member, Roger's concepts DEFINED the Floyd the world knows, and Gilmour, Wright, and Mason were the perfect compliments to execute those visions... >the first excursions into Space rock by the band. WHAT? I suppose "Astronomy Domine" and "Interstellar Overdrive" count for nothing...

Advantages: Flawless
Disadvantages: None

This was Floyd's second album and saw Roger Waters becoming the leader of the band, the last appearnce of Syd Barrett on "Jugband Blues" , the introduction of Dave Gilmour to replace Syd on lead Guitar and the first excursions into Space rock by the band. The album is an improvement on their debut, but the music seems to take a darker turn , shades of things to come. It features conventional songs but also reflects their live improvisational skills ...
...eight minutes of instrumental noise metamorphosing into a beutiful hammond organ led code with Vaughn-Williams chord changes. The album has no weak links and is a fine example of psychedelic rock. Its Pink Floyd in transition and includes compositions by keyboard player Rick Wright. Another must have Floyd album. ... Read review

Advantages: Original, timeless
Disadvantages: none

...was expanding it's fan base Barrett's increasing use of LSD finally caught up with him, becoming more withdrawn and increasingly unreliable he was sacked from the band in April 1968. David Gilmour who had been brought in to cover for Barrett in some live shows then became a fulltime member. The loss of Barrett was a big blow for the band but they managed to recover and with Roger Waters gradually becoming the main song writer Pink Floyd did have success with their next few albums 'A Saucerful Of Secrets' (Barrett appears on 3 of the 7 tracks) 'More' and 'Ummagumma'. None of these or later releases 'Atom Heart Mother', 'Meddle' or 'Obscured by Clouds' managed to break the band on to the wider international stage. But the music scene was changing the hippie summer of love was quickly fading and the music world was still suffering a post... Read review

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Advantages: Floyd, Cannabis, experimental, WOW
Disadvantages: Can be a little too odd for some

...was ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ which departed from the acid lead music and went more into the avant-garde ‘arty’ music. Then ‘A Soundtrack to the film More’ which as the title suggests was a soundtrack, but still offered a good insight into the movement of the band. Interestingly in that third album there are a couple of songs that sound like 70s rock, which just shows you how advanced and experimental Pink Floyd were in the 60s. And all that leads to this album, or rather these albums. As you will now know from my previous words Pink Floyd were by now not just a fantastic band but on the cutting edge, which also meant they hadn’t settled on a single style for more than an album. UmmaGumma was no different! The two CDs are, in my opinion, thankfully in two separate case. I always seem to break the ones that whole two CDs in one small case... Read review

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Advantages: Brilliant example of innovative 60's music
Disadvantages: Maybe a little dated for some and quite different from their later work.

...and enthusiastically embracing novel recording techniques (as well as copious amounts of 'marijuana' and LSD) to bring out some of the most inventive music of the era. I first bought this album in the mid 70's for 99p and even then it was great value. Originally it was released as a sampler for the bands early music on a cheaper branch on the EMI label. Since then I've replaced it with a cd re-mastered version and it sounds as innovative on a recent listening as it did when I first played it on my old turntable. 'Relics' is effectively a sampler compilation album containing tracks from Pink Floyd's previous albums 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn' (mostly Barret compositions), 'A Saucerful of Secrets', 'More' (a film soundtrack) includes singles, 'See Emliy Play' and 'Arnold Layne' and 'Paintbox'. The music illustrates what the Floyd were all about... Read review

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