May 23rd, 2002 by Kevin Syd Barrett: Misunderstood Genuis or Raving Lunatic - A Look at RELICS

Yeah, I'm back. I'm going to do music reviews for awhile because they're so much easier to do than writing actual content. I will be updating more often. Even though summer brings on a whole new laundry list of things to worry about, I will press on to bring you the entertainment you so crave. Or at least go insane trying to. I reviewed the new Weeazer album here, so take a look.

Pink Floyd's early music isn't usually regarded as their best work, and most of the blame is put on founder Syd Barrett. There are some hardcore Syd fans out there who think he was a musical genius, and there are naysayers who think he did way too much LSD and were glad that Roger Waters took over the band. Whatever the case may be, Barrett's musical influence was felt by the band, even after his departure. Even as late as Wish You Were Here, the personal influence of Syd was still a factor in Floyd's music.

The album Relics is a collection of Pink Floyd's early work. Only 4 tracks are credited to Barrett, but like I said, his influence was felt far after he was kicked out of the band. Relics is probably the easiest way too look at early Floyd, aside from reviewing each of there early albums like A Saucerful of Secrets and Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The general feeling of this album is psychedelic, which should be expected. The outcome is hit or miss, as there are some brilliant moments on this disc, but other times the results are just abysmal.

I'll start with the songs that were written by Syd Barrett. "Arnold Layne" and "see Emily Play" were two of Pink Floyd's early singles, and for good reason. They are probably the two most coherent songs on the whole disc. "Interstellar Overdrive," on the other hand, is quite possibly the worst instrumental I have ever heard. De-tuned guitars give way to eerie organ sounds and God knows what else for 9 and a half agonizing minutes. I was glad when it was finally over. "Bike" is the closer, and a very interesting one at that. With lyrics like "I've got a mouse and he hasn't got a house / I don't know why I call him Gerald / He's getting rather old but he's a good mouse." make you wonder what kind of drugs Mr. Barrett was experimenting with at the time, especially when coupled with the seemingly normal chorus of "You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world / I'll give you anything everything if you want things." But other than the zany lyrics, the song has a catchy melody to it and is, at least to me, two minutes of delightful insanity, After the song is done there's about a minute of effects thathave nothing to do with red bikes or gingerbread men, but what do you expect from Syd Barrett?

There really isn't anything special about the heart of the album, the songs are typical late-60's rock. "Julia Dream" was pretty enough if they didn't have to screw it up by putting 15 seconds of distorted synths at the end of it. Why anyone would name an instrumental "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" is beyond me, but Pink Floyd did it. The song isn't half as bad as "Interstellar Overdrive" but that's not saying much.

The end of the album is where it starts to get interesting, for better or for worse. "Cirrus Minor" would have been better had it just been 4 minutes of the birds chirping, instead you get the birds on top of organs and guitars. "The Nile Song" is probably the only heavy Floyd song I've heard. The fuzzy guitars give it a classic rock feel. "Biding My Time" finds Roger Waters doing his best Paul McCartney impression in a decent blues number complete with a horn section.

All in all I expected this disc to be far worse than it was made out to be. Syd Barrett's influence maybe wasn't the best for the band but it could've been far worse. They could have ended up sounding like Led Zeppelin or something. Just kidding.

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