George Starostin's Reviews

 GENTLE GIANT

"Words from the wise, believe in you, all I do is believe in me"

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General Rating: 2

Introduction

ALBUM REVIEWS:

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Introduction

I don't like Gentle Giant as much as I'm supposed to. That certainly doesn't mean that I don't like Gentle Giant at all. And of course, it would be an absolute stupidity to deny Gentle Giant the right to occupy a worthy place in the midst of all the important progressive groups of the early Seventies. Gentle Giant arrived on the scene approximately at the same time as everybody else - in 1970; however, they never really made it big, and it's not difficult to see why. Or, wait, now that I finally braced myself to explaining this, it's actually quite difficult.
Let's try it that way: on one hand, the advantages of Gentle Giant and their differences from other prog bands of the time are rather obvious. While the band never had a truly outstanding soloist, neither in the keyboards nor in the guitar department, most of its players were quite gifted, especially such multi-instrumentalists as Phi Shulman and Kerry Minnear, and the ace guitarist Gary Green. More important, they were always bent on playing music; and I should probably not only put these two words in italics, I should have also made 'em bold and underlined and multi-coloured. See, Gentle Giant rarely went for atmospheric build-ups and sound effects, nor did they just fool around with their synthesizers. No, the band was always intent on playing music, and playing it as well, as much and in as many different ways as possible. Their blend of prog is almost impossible to categorize: jazz seems to be the most obvious of influences, but it's only one of the influences. Their work includes short and long passages of classical, folk, rock'n'roll, even punk (in the late stages); mixing up medieval balladeering and heavy metal, or slick pop with church organ instrumental parts is the regular way of life for them. They say that in concert the band members used to switch between various instruments all the time, so that the stage usually looked as if it were set up for an entire orchestra. And, while they rarely went for creating twenty-minute epics, the sine qua non of most 'classic' prog bands, their songs are really a hard nut to chew on: apparently, the thing that the band liked most of all was switch as many time signatures as possible within the limits of a three-to-five-minutes rock song without making it sound a complete cacophonous mess.
In other words, Gentle Giant are unique. The question is: but are they good? Technical skill and loads of complex melodies do not necessarily make up an impressive record. And this is where I come into conflict with the average prog fan. For those who enjoy anything as long as it stays a long distance away from 'pop', Gentle Giant's music is an absolute must - these guys often make Yes sound like the Monkees. But for all their complexity, Gentle Giant rarely achieve enough emotional effect through their music: much too often, they just sound like they're playing for the sake of playing, showcasing their skills but having no real feeling in their heart. Their music is rarely 'atmospheric', either: they don't trigger your imagination to make you wander through medieval landscapes like Genesis did in their prime. Sometimes they engage you, sometimes they don't, but it's understood that their primary purpose is not to engage you: their primary purpose is to create waves and waves of new, complicated sound textures that stream as far from the mainstream as possible.
This explains why Gentle Giant have never found a mass audience: they never managed to make the big commercial breakthrough, and not even any progressive rock fan is aware of their existence and importance in the first place. They always had, and still have, a faithful group of followers (which isn't really that large), which have always admired the band's progressive spirit; but for a more 'opened' and eclectic fan like me, there's really far more to dislike about Gentle Giant than to like about them. I do admire the band's spirit and bravery to unleash such a constant stream of hard-to-follow progressive albums from 1970 to 1976, but I'm also very selective about their output. The regular prog audiences apparently thought likewise, and with all their bravado, Gentle Giant never found a way to penetrate the hearts of the critics or even the 'elitist' prog lovers. That certainly does not account for the travesty committed by Rolling Stone, which did not even bother to include Gentle Giant in its performer list; however, it certainly accounts for, well, everything else.
Ironically, I feel much better about the last period of that band's career than most of their fans do. At the tail end of the Seventies, Gentle Giant chose the 'assimilative' tactics and went for a more mainstream sound, steadily making the transgression from complex prog to rather simplistic pop. For that, their latest albums are often loathed; yet they did create some minor pop masterpieces, and their 'pop' products in the late Seventies were infinitely better than, say, similar Genesis products (read in more details on that in my Giant For A Day review).
That said, I still find the courage to award the band a rating of two, if only for their utmost importance to prog as a genre. And, well, whatever, it's quite possible to make yourself a ninety-minute tape of Gentle Giant tunes and consider it one of the best prog tapes ever made. I guess that's what I'm going to go do right now, oh wait, just a minute, lemme give you the scoop on the lineup.
Lineup, then: Derek Shulman - vocals; Ray Shulman - bass, violin, percussion, backing vocals; Phil Shulman - brass instruments, vocals; Kerry Minnear - keyboards, vocals; Gary Green - lead guitar; Martin Smith - drums. While the first five gentlemen were more or less constants in the line-up, the drummers for Gentle Giant kept coming and going; John Wethers seems to have been the most important of these.

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ALBUM REVIEWS
GENTLE GIANT

Year Of Release: 1970
Record rating = 10
Overall rating = 12

A solid prog-rock album, sharing all of prog's flaws but also apparently unique in its blend of instrumentation.
Best song: FUNNY WAYS

Important Preliminary Note: this is the best album by GG I've heard so far, but I still feel pretty feeble about that twelve I've given it. I still hold out hopes for some of their more 'popular' (not 'pop'!) albums like Power And Glory or Acquiring The Taste; if they turn out to be more strong efforts, I'll reduce this here rating to a 9. Consider it a little mathematical trickery, if you wish. Now, on to the review.
Gentle Giant might have been 'giants for a day', but they were certainly midgets for a year - at least, such a year as 1970. In the fall of 1969, such an album as their glorious debut might have been a sensation. As it was, King Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King had already firmly taken the niche in which this album was meant to be inserted, and sceptics and critics might have easily done the mistake of dismissing Gentle Giant as a carbon copy, if not a miserable parody on, prog rock's first masterful statement. Indeed, it's hard to get rid of the 'parody' idea, especially when putting both CD's next to each other and glancing at the covers (remember the Crimson King? If you don't, here's a link.) And as for the music itself, Gentle Giant have certainly taken a prog approach much similar to King Crimson's: relying more on bringing jazz and avantgarde elements into rock music than mating it with classical a la ELP or going into the ultra-complex pattern of Yes and the like. Not to mention the band's impressive instrumental techniques: the Mellotrons, recorders and saxes are quite prominent throughout the record, making it a bizarre, delicious hodge-podge of ideas. Finally, some of the songs sound almost exactly like early King Crimson ('Alucard').
That said, Gentle Giant are hardly as impressive, shocking and emotionally resonant as King Crimson, at least, as King Crimson was on the border of the decades. The album sounds dangerously smooth, with relatively quiet, toned down guitar and keyboard parts, and a homely, soft type of production that can't provide any of the tunes with a 'universal', bombastic feel even when they obviously demand one ('Giant'). The instrumental parts, which are many, are not as well thought out as in King Crimson's case, and, while I indeed admire the band members' prowess at multi-instrumentalism, none of the members are virtuoso players. In other words, none of the songs make you burst out of your chair or grind you into the wall: for comparison, just replay your trusty rusty 'Schizoid Man'.
But why complain? There have always been first-rate and second-rate bands - and hey, there've been third- and fourth-rate bands, too - and Gentle Giant is simply a terrific second-rate prog-rock band (there I go hanging these labels again; but see, I'm not an anti-labelist as so many people claim to be and think they're so clever and so 'above' labeling. Labels are extremely useful when not over-abused). Anyway, I slowly grew used to this album, though I admit it did take me a while. Many of these songs are really well-written, and kudos to Gentle Giant for not falling into the regular trap and, for the most part, sticking to the 'middle-length' pattern. There's only one nine-minute epic on here, 'Nothing At All', and as is the case with almost any prog epic except the most worthy, it has its moments that suck and other moments that... suck even more. Heh, heh, just kidding. It starts out as a soft folksy medieval ballad, with a very pleasant vibe about it and beautiful vocal harmonies, then becomes quite rockin', with some mighty riffage and mad soloing courtesy of Gary Green, but as you're just settling down it suddenly turns into a pointless electronic drum solo courtesy of Martin Smith (or maybe it's principal keyboard wiz Kerry Minnear that does the drumming? he's credited for 'tuned percussion' on the album) which just bores the very soul out of me. What a waste of space on an album that's quite short by itself.
The first four tracks on the album are swell, however (in a relative way - remember, it's a second-rate prog-rock band we're speaking of!). 'Giant' sets the band's entire image, with its 'demiurgical' lyrics and pompous, twisted melody, full of nice guitar lines, sax swirls and grumbly bass lines. Of course, the song immediately brings visions of '21st Century Schizoid Man' to mind: nowhere near as powerful or shocking, though. I must also say that I'm definitely not a fan of Derek Shulman's vocals: he shares the same kind of bleeting tenor that distinguished the 'infamous' Roger Chapman of Family, but unlike Chapman, he never uses his voice in a freakin' perverted way, so it's not even interesting as a novelty factor. Thankfully, he doesn't sing too much on this track: the verses are all short.
'Funny Ways' is the definite highlight of the album. Brother Phil Shulman's vocals are, in contrast, quite gorgeous, sweet and heavenly, and this beautiful ballad, all drenched in acoustic guitars, pretty synth strings and real cellos, is a perfect marriage of progressive ambitions with classical-influenced pop schlock (the latter not taken in a real denigratory sense on here). The mid-section is probably the closest they ever got to a cathartic climax on here, with Green taking a short, but surprisingly effective, hard-rocking lead.
'Alucard', then, is the forgotten gem of this record. If you think that it was Pete Townshend, or Stevie Wonder, or ELP, that first put the synthesizer to a proper musical use, do not think that any more. Kerry Minnear basically makes the song his own, building it on a gruff, gloomy synthesizer riff and exploiting the instrument masterfully throughout. Once again, the song reminds me of King Crimson - 'Pictures Of A City' this time - but this time I'd say it's the Gentle Giant song that's the superior one. The powerful, unforgettable interplay between the synth and Phil's saxophone simply can't be beat: it's quite a rousing experience, and a would-be masterpiece, if not for the particularly ugly vocal sections spoiled by ugly sound effects.
Finally, the practice of 'calm after the storm' is carried on to the following track: the brontosauric 'Alucard' is succeeded by the quiet and cold aura of a tune, quite naturally entitled 'Isn't It Quiet And Cold?'. Phil again sings lead here (why don't they let him sing everything on here? His voice is so angelic!), and the song itself is a charming jazzy shuffle with a wonderful cello accompaniment, and hey, what's that in the background? Electric piano? Sounds really relaxing and moody to me. Even the glockenspiel is moody. Ooh, is it moody.
Now if only they hadn't run out of ideas on the second side (both 'Nothing At All' and the bloozy 'Why Not?' have their moments, but both also overstay their welcome), I would easily call it the best prog record written by any second-rate prog rock band I've ever heard. As it is, I'll simply call it One of the best prog records written by any second-rate prog rock band I've ever heard. (Hey, have you realized you're dealing with a hopeless scholastic? And have you ever tried to count my average number of parentheses per review?) In any case, I simply don't understand what the hell that last track is doing on there. Is it a mocking re-arrangement of 'God Save The Queen' or what? One and a half minutes more of wasted tape; man, these guys sure have a lot of filler for such a short record.

Isn't it quiet and cold when there are no comments for an album?

Your worthy comments:

Ben Greenstein <[email protected]> (04.05.2000)

David Albert <[email protected]> (08.08.2000)

Kevin Muckenthaler <[email protected]> (17.10.2000)

THREE FRIENDS

Year Of Release: 1972
Record rating = 9
Overall rating = 11

A concept album that manages to have quite a bit of filler for its thirty minutes, but some great tunes and ideas as well.
Best song: SCHOOLDAYS

For their third album, Gentle Giant decided they were going to expand their conceptual horizons - and ended up writing a mini-rock opera. Not that the album really feels as a rock opera, mind you; for the most part, I sense the concept as merely as an excuse for loads and loads of pleasant, but rather unrelated jamming. The concept itself is rather simple and not all that thought-provoking: basically, they tell the story of three friends (how did you guess?) that were friends in school and later went their own ways, one of them becoming a road worker, the other a painter, and the third a businessman or whoever. Apparently, they never met after school, and that's the way it goes. So there's a 'Prologue' (not an overture), a song devoted to their school experience, a 'personal' tune for each of the friends (why does that remind me of Quadrophenia?), and an epilogue. And the whole thing is just about thirty minutes long; Gentle Giant always made their albums short, that's why there's so many of them.
Not that I don't like the album - I consider it one of their best, in fact, if a little misguided and erratic in places. Since there are but six songs, it's rather easy to concentrate on each of them separately, no matter how musically twisted they are. 'Prologue' is really the least interesting of the bunch; starting out as an organ-based jam, it quickly sets 'the background' with half a minute worth of lovely vocal harmonies, and then degenerates back into the same kind of jam with Gary Green taking over the leading role and playing some decent, but still lacklustre guitar. 'Schooldays', though, is nothing short of a GG masterpiece: the introductory duet between Kerry's vibes and Gary's fluent guitar sounds not unlike the kind of music the archangels must be playing for the Lord God above, and the complex vocal harmonies, arranged as a call-and-answer session ('the bell rings - and all things - are calling'), are incredible; I wonder if they ever managed to pull them off onstage. Probably did. While seven minutes might be a little long for this song, I rarely ever feel so: the tune evokes beautiful memories, and it's really a very nice choice to make if you ever want to go back to your childhood.
But children grow up, and start going their own ways. 'Working All Day' presents the 'elder brother' who hasn't managed to achieve much; he's represented by a menacing, grumbly fusion-style composition, this time based around guitar/brass interplay, with lots of fat saxes all around the place and a nice organ solo. While the song is not the most impressive on the record, it's at least a compact and memorable composition, so that lovers of order and structure will be attracted to it. Me, I'm more interested in the artist's confession, the multi-part suite 'Peel The Paint'. It begins fairly inoffensive, with a lightweight classical-influenced pastiche sung by Phil Shulman as he sings about all the joys and pleasures of the artist's profession - 'lost in the hush, no need to rush, time waits for him who creates with the brush'. Then, all of a sudden, hoopla! the bassline gets menacing, and the song transforms into an aggressive jazz-rock thunderstorm, with Phil passing over the vocals to Derek who shatters the illusions - 'peel the paint, look underneath, you'll see the same old savage beast'. The song then ventures off into a million directions, all of them fascinating, with Gary soloing like mad and various echo and tremolo effects on the instruments that create an effectively 'evil' atmosphere, not in the Sabbath meaning of the word, but rather in the 'church style', if you get what I mean. Shucks, I don't quite get it myself.
'Mister Class And Quality', then, introduces the most successful of the three friends, and again, the tune is rather throwaway, as compact and short as it is. Even the lyrics are trite. 'The world needs steady men like me to give and take the orders'. Sure thing. So skip it and concentrate on the title track, a kind of 'epilogue' for the album. Again, it's multi-part, and again, it's a good one - strange how I actually like the most complex parts on this album and dislike the simplistic ones. Hmm. Maybe it's time for me to try my hand at a review for those whacko guys at www.prog.net. (Don't go there! You'll get hernia! I warned you!) Anyway, 'Three Friends' again goes from an aggressive jazzy jam to a majestic part with lots of atmospheric synths, Mellotrons and church organs which makes a suitable conclusion for the entire 'concept'.
Actually, I don't mind that the idea was such a trivial one; on the contrary, I'm quite glad that Three Friends is a concept album. The concept gives all of the songs a sense - while the general melodies and jams are indeed tighter and richer and more emotionally resonant than the ones on Octopus, it's the concept that really organizes them and breathes real life and content into what would otherwise be a passable set of self-indulgent improvisations. Unfortunately, the boys were not too wild about the concept themselves, I suppose, and they did not venture out to implement the same tactics on their next release - to disastrous results.

Peel the paint and release your ideas

Your worthy comments:

Ben Greenstein <[email protected]> (16.03.2000)

Kevin Muckenthaler <[email protected]> (17.10.2000)

OCTOPUS

Year Of Release: 1972
Record rating = 8
Overall rating = 10

Too much avantgarde and dissonance for avantgarde and dissonance's own sake. This record goes nowhere, and that's that.
Best song: RIVER

I originally gave this album an overall rating of nine (which explains the criticism below), but I was definitely wrong. I won't rewrite my original review, because I still agree with much of what I've written, but truth is, with time the record grows on you at least to a stage when you get to understand that the band really care about their melodies. I guess it's the almost complete lack of emotional resonance that made me so harsh in the first place - but I didn't really give enough credit to the band's general inventiveness, freshness and originality. 'Raconteur Troubadour' and 'Dog's Life', in particular, turn out to be far more interesting musically than I'd previously suspected - after all, who cares if they overestimate the complexity of medieval music? 'Raconteur Troubadour' kicks, and the pretty acoustic melody of 'Dog's Life' is actually engaging. I still hate the badass vocal harmony arrangements in 'Knots', and that instrumental is just as meaningless as it ever was, but none of the other tracks are bad, and most are quite engaging and occasionally hilarious. A high overall ten, weak eleven it is. Now here's my original review - don't despise it, either.
Not for me, thank you. Lord knows I simply adore octopuses (or, if we try to be correct and observe the rules of the original language, octopodes), and the All-Music Guide does consider this record to be Gentle Giant's creative peak, together with many of the band's fans; and indeed, if it's pure creativity and originality we're speaking of, Octopus may offer a lot more to you than Gentle Giant will ever do, and if it's complexity you're after, this album will baffle you even more than Three Friends. But that does not detract me from stating that as a whole, the record is simply dull - ranging from 'normally dull' to 'deadly dull', in fact.
By the end of 1972, the band had all but abandoned 'standard song conceptions'; out of the seven tracks on here, not even a single one has less than two or three different time signatures, and Octopus isn't even such a blatantly 'conceptual' album as Three Friends. Okay, that might be understandable. But not a single one of these songs (except maybe 'River') has anything to offer us in the way of memorable melodies or solid riffs, either! As much as I would like to respect and/or love any of these ditties, I simply can't since there's absolutely nothing to hold on to. Yeah, the songs are short - thank God, because otherwise the album would simply be unlistenable. But each song consists of several sections, and quite often they alternate with each other in such a flurry that you don't even have the time to catch your breath. And I'm sorry to say that, and I apologize if one of my readers on here happens to be a hardcore Giant fan, but for the most part, these sections are rote. Just like King Crimson (who they seem to be ripping off more and more with every succeeding record), Gentle Giant slowly, but steadily move away from the 'atmospheric epic' and run towards 'self-indulgent jazzy noodling'; unlike King Crimson, though, they don't even win through instrumental virtuosity.
In other words, while technically and superficially there's a lot of life going on within the album, on closer look it turns out to be painfully shallow. Who needs all these intricate vocal harmonies, medieval cellos and special effects when there's simply no sense in the songs? And no atmosphere either. Except as mediocre background music for the progressive-oriented ear, the album simply does not qualify.
What use do I have, for instance, for the ridiculous instrumental 'The Boys In The Band'? I admit the laughter and the flick of the coin in the intro are amusing, but would that mean I'd have to pardon the tune? It's just a routine, ordinary jazz instrumental with nothing special about it, and I could care less about the time signature - if I want quality 'jazz-prog', I'll take the real King Crimson or Frank Zappa over this any day. Likewise, I totally despise the ugly, dissonant, mantraic 'Knots', an avantgarde/psychedelic 'mini-suite' that showcases the band at its most insecure and uncertain; the nasty overdubbed vocals don't give me anything but a headache. If this is music, I'll better limit myself to cooking.
Some say that on Octopus the band took a 'heavier' approach than on the previous albums. Well, if that's the case, some of the previous albums must have been softer than Renaissance (by the way, parts of Three Friends rock out more convincingly than everything on here); the only song that at least slightly approaches 'heavy' is 'A Cry For Everyone', an okayish tune that's actually enjoyable at certain moments, with Gary Green playing a la Tony Iommi (and no, I don't mean the degree of heaviness, rather the chord progressions); however, even that one becomes boring when it deteriorates into synth-based jams along the way. 'Heavy' is also an epithet I've met in conjunction with the album's centerpiece, 'The Advent Of Panurge'; while the very idea of the song being 'heavy' is ridiculous, the song is one of the two or three only 'real good' songs on the record. Lyrics-wise, it takes an episode from Francois Rabelais' 'Pantagruel' (that of Pantagruel's meeting with the mendicant 'philosopher' Panurges; the theme of Pantagruel is actually carried over by the band from one of its previous albums) and translates it into lyrical form; melody-wise, it wisely alternates more of that avantgarde jazzy rambling with medieval influences - especially interesting and almost charming, I'd say, are the introductory vocal harmonies. Maybe the band should have simply transformed 'Pantagruel' into a full-fledged rock opera? On the other hand, their more direct attempt at creating some sort of medieval hymn in 'Raconteur Troubadour' doesn't work at all; apparently, they overestimate the complexity of medieval music, and come out with a hardly listenable mess.
Even the balladeering department is in decline. Gorgeous ballads are what had always dstinguished the band in the past; this time around, there's but one ballad on the entire album, and it's hardly anything more than 'okay' (the pretty, but never climactic 'Think Of Me With Kindness'). And only the final 'River', with its brilliant guitar/violin duet, has managed to draw my attention from the very start; not that the melodies on that one are really stronger than anything else on the record, but I was very, very much impressed by that dual attack on your eardrums (ever heard a wah-wah and a violin screech in unison? Makes a groovy sound!)
But in general, the record just made a very sad impression on me. At the height of prog, when minor masterpieces like Foxtrot or Thick As A Brick were the norm of the day, Gentle Giant come up with this? A disjointed collection of lacklustre, uninspired jazzy jams? Who really cares? If you're not a progressive freak like the dudes that write reviews for www.prog.net and mostly judge a song by (a) the number of minutes it runs, (b) the number of times the band changes time signatures, and (c) the number of chords used in it, you'll hate this album just like me, because, well, you're bound to.

Think of me with kindness when you mail your ideas

Your worthy comments:

Ben Greenstein <[email protected]> (14.03.2000)

Eric X Kuns <[email protected]> (29.06.2000)

David Albert <[email protected]> (02.08.2000)

Kevin Muckenthaler <[email protected]> (17.10.2000)

<[email protected]> (08.11.2000)

IN A GLASS HOUSE

Year Of Release: 1973
Record rating = 8
Overall rating = 10

About as much avantgarde and dissonance as before, but this time it's at least more melodic and more rational.
Best song: AN INMATES LULLABY

I actually like this more than Octopus, despite the fact that the band mostly follows the same formula. Moreover, they tend to really go over the fence: this time around, there are but six tunes, some of them really really extended and even less concentrated than before, as the band keeps switching in between various themes and tempos. And, unlike Octopus, no particular tune on here really 'sticks out' like you'd want it to: no 'River' or 'Advent Of Panurge' on here.
Instead, the band returns to conceptualism - the entire album, so is said, is devoted to the idea that you shouldn't throw stones while living in a glass house. One might interpret that slogan in many different ways; but it should be noted that the lyrics on the album are for the most part pessimistic, condemning both the society ('The Runaway') and the individual living in that society ('Experience'). And overall, the record is kinda grim, starting from the 'grayish', discoloured music and ending with the album cover. However, I do prefer its grimness and pessimism to the overall absurdity and pointlessness of Octopus; at least, on here the boys sound like they really want to make a statement (or two) and not just run around like fools without making sense.
The album begins brilliantly - with the sounds of breaking glass which finally develop into a rhythmic pattern, a technology the band doubtlessly copped from Pink Floyd's ringing cash registers on 'Money'. This rhythm fades out, giving way to 'The Runaway', a track that rocks pretty hard but goes on for far too long and has absolutely ineffective vocals; the lyrics, about an outcast and his feelings about the world, are very good - in fact, the album arguably features the band's best set of lyrics ever - but I feel that the band failed to give them more poignancy with an effective vocal workout.
Not so with 'An Inmates Lullaby', however - the song is very pretty and strikes me as a near-masterpiece. Essentially, it's supposed to be a confession of a patient in an asylum, and it's both sad and joyful at the same time. Joyful, because they give the impression of a person completely happy and comfortable with his fate: 'Lying down here in the afternoon/In my pretty cozy little cushioned room/I can talk to all my funny friends in here/I was told to rest why... I am not quite clear'. And Kerry sings them in a light, pleasant falsetto, while the only instruments playing are numerous vibes and soft, unobtrusive percussion, giving the impression of 'paradise on Earth'. Sad, because it's a wee bit creepy when you try to put yourself in that place... anyway, the song features one of the most effective and wonderful examples of vibes playing I ever heard.
The funny thing, however, is that 'Way Of Life' starts out as a... Dance Tune! Somebody shouts out 'GO' and the band breaks into a fast, disco-ish groove based on a repetitive synth pattern. I mean, I could only qualify that rhythm as disco with a little hint of Latin influences; disco two or three years before it actually took off? Man, that was probably considered pretty avantgarde for its time. Funny, isn't it? The first ever disco song produced by a pure progressive band (who have an excuse, as they probably never suspected it was disco). Apart from that, the tune is not very attractive - once again, ineffective, whiny vocals from Derek and the least interesting vocals on the album. Even the gentle mid-section with all these violins never helps.
'Experience', then, is the second side's best track: a typical Gentle Giant medieval stylization in the style of 'Advent Of Panurges'; nowhere near as exciting, but with some beautiful vocals and interesting lyrics telling us about a person's maturation and reevaluation of his past and present. 'A Reunion' hardly has any distinct melody, but the atmosphere is nice, and violins, once again, are a great touch to the tune. Finally, the title track finishes the album on a good note: the sections gel together, they get some real hard-rockin' parts towards the end of the song, some nice steel guitar, and hey, the violins are still there.
Now, to tell you the truth, I look back at my review of Octopus and I really don't understand what made me despise that album so much and despise Glass House to such a lesser extent. I'd say it is primarily the feeling of sense in the music. Octopus, to me, was a more or less pointless sound collage that came out of nowhere and headed back to the same place; apart from self-indulgence, it didn't amount to much. In A Glass House, with its vague, but existent, concept, puts Gentle Giant's artsy ambitions on a solid base of 'social philosophy' (in a certain way, it's a return to the aesthetics of Three Friends). It's still rather dull, and has to be listened to really hard and really long before it can be at least partly appreciated, but at least the existence of such a record is justified. You can even identify with it, if you're in the mood.
In any case, my rants in this case are hardly of any use to anybody - the record is currently out of print everywhere, not even available as an import. I was lucky to get a pirated CD of it; if you're a Gentle Giant fan, try the used CD stores. It's rather strange, actually, that such an important record as this one is out of print when, say, Giant For A Day (a better record, IMHO, but certainly not a great buy for the fans) is not, but such are small mysteries of life. Speaking of small mysteries of life, how come nobody's yet commented on Brian Eno's Before And After Science apart from my trusty friend, Mr Richard C. Dickison? Didn't I mention that it's one of the greatest albums ever to be put out since the heyday of rock'n'roll? AND YOU HAVEN'T BOUGHT IT YET? Do you think it's fun being a reviewer when nobody ever follows your advices? Tough crowd! Tough crowd!

Way of life: mailing your ideas

Your worthy comments:

Ben Greenstein <[email protected]> (04.05.2000)

David Albert <[email protected]> (31.07.2000)

LIVE ROME 1974

Year Of Release: 2000
Record rating = 7
Overall rating = 9

What? Who? Where? Oh, this one! Well, I guess it rules - I just get kinda tired of twiddling the volume up and down, up and down...
Best song: FUNNY WAYS

An archive release. A blessing for fans. A real treat for elitist critics. I get that. Gentle Giant are an excellent live band - see The Official Live below for some general remarks about their abilities. Good timing, too: by 1974 their catalogue was more or less complete, with tons of excellent first class material (sometimes overshadowed by self-indulgent dissonant crap, but let's be forgiving) and almost guaranteeing them the big time: their last album dented the charts, Europe greeted them with open arms and you know the rest. This record features seventy minutes of first-rate Gentle Giant live material, during which they play three lengthy medleys plus 'Funny Ways' and entertain the croud in a thoroughly gentle and a thoroughly gigantic way, with polyphonic jams, wah-wah violin solos, violent drum battles, and ominous synthesizer symphonies. The only question is...
...what's the goddamn deal with the recording quality? This is an archive, yet official release, and yet I can not only say that I've heard many bootlegs of better quality, but even that out of any official live releases I have so far, yes, even including old Sixties' releases where the instruments are usually hidden behind the screaming girls, this one's undoubtedly the worst. Rummaging around the Gentle Giant site, I found out that Live Rome 1974 is in fact taken directly from an older bootleg, formerly called Giant Steps Forward. The stupendous thing is, they did nothing with that bootleg - just stamped 'official' on it, changed the title and went ahead. Now frankly, I have to ask myself if anybody ever actually listened to this disc before sending it to CD stores. Even crappy bootlegs can be worked wonders with - you know, clean up the tape, adjust the mix, straighten out all the volume levels, whatever. Nobody gave a damn. No sooner do you put on the record than you're submitted to at least several changes in tone, volume, and frequency. The drums kick in and then suddenly disappear, together with the keyboards. The volume floats as if the mixing board was caught in the middle of a storm. To top it off, an alarm clock goes off somewhere (I'm not making this up!) and goes on buzzing for at least thirty or fourty seconds while Derek Shulman actually begins singing. In all, you're in for a real treat.
It does get better later on - seems like at some point the engineers finally caught a 'good' positioning of all the switches and tumblers, but that doesn't mean the problems disappear: they just become less obnoxious and more naggin'. You'll be bound to fiddle around with your volume throughout: remember that Gentle Giant were great fans of the 'stop-and-start' techniques, as well as of alternating slow/quiet and loud/aggressive sections, but the mixing board sure can't be taught that. There are periods when I don't hear anything for about a minute - turning up the volume, I find out that they had been playing some interesting musical theme all that time! Curses! I turn it up louder, and then Kerry goes BOOM with a really loud synthesizer passage and I just fly out the window. Bummer. The damn engineers should have been shot, and the creep who decided to let this go without specially preparing the tapes should follow suite.
With all these problems, it's no wonder the actual performances kinda just fade away. A pity, that, because Gentle Giant actually played strong on that night (to be precise, November 26, 1974), and there are lots of treats for the fan, most of which are at least partially spoilt because of the quality. The opening jam has an excellent rendition of 'Proclamation', for instance (also, strange enough, the track listing has 'Giant' as part of the introduction medley, but I never really found any 'Giant' on there. Where?). 'Funny Ways' is 'Funny Ways', and will always be; this will probably be my favourite Gentle Giant tune of all time, at least on all live recordings. The Glass House medley is not that hot, but the Octopus medley, bar 'Knots', is fabulous - beautiful acoustic guitar and recorder solos on that one. And the magnum opus of the record, the closing jam (consisting of 'Nothing At All', 'Plain Truth', and lots of Weird Inaccessible Instrumental Stuff), also has its moments, most notably the schizophrenic violin soloing and the engaging violin/guitar battles; however, it also has a prolongated drum solo which suddenly starts being accompanied with shrill whistling. I haven't got the least idea why everything that John Weathers hits suddenly replies with a whistle. Who's whistling? The mixing board? Or is it just Derek Shulman who's got nothing better to do? STOP THOSE WHISTLES! They drive me crazy!
Are you still with me? Be off with you then: Live Rome 1974 is only recommendable for the ultimate in diehard fans, and even then, you might wanna pass if you're not collecting Gentle Giant bootlegs. Anybody who wants to have a high quality live Gentle Giant recording are better off with Playing The Fool. Well, at least this one has some cool pictures (I, for one, never could imagine the band was so vivid and active onstage). But I'm still left wondering - if they were so painfully searching for a nice archive release, and if they were so lazy they couldn't give the recording at least a superficial 'cleaning', couldn't they at least have found a better bootleg? This is a real shame...

Proclamation: mail your ideas!

INTERVIEW

Year Of Release: 1976
Record rating = 4
Overall rating = 6

Extremely twisted and dissonant jazzy stuff. Definitely not for me, and probably not for you.
Best song: INTERVIEW

Now this is some prime crap. I mean, what the hell, it makes Octopus sound like the angels' music in comparison. Apparently, Interview was Gentle Giant's response to their trusty fans who'd suspected their music had begun to 'commercialize' on some of the previous albums. 'Commercialize', Bros Shulmans declared? 'We give you THIS!' And they gave out such a mind-and-everything-else-blowing experience that after they'd completed it, there was no further choice for them but to really commercialize their music.
Interview is formally structured as a 'conceptual' album - the record begins with the band arriving at some place as if to hold a real interview with a real interviewer, and the songs are interrupted from time to time with bits and pieces of the band's dialogue with the interviewer. However, casting these bits and the lyrics of the title track (which could really be judged as some kind of poetic interview) aside, the only 'conceptual' idea of the album seems to be the universal motto - 'play as dissonant as possible and if you degenerate to 4/4 you're gonna get it'. Most of these songs are horrendous, atrocious garbage, and I'm not afraid to say that. Judging from the pure perspective of 'enjoyability', Interview ranks as one of the worst albums I've ever heard, and it's indeed the kind of record that gives progressive rock a bad name - fortunately, too few people ever heard it to make any serious conclusions.
Kill me. Just kill me. I don't even know how to begin trying to describe any of these songs. They are so full of everything - and at the same time, so empty and devoid of any real excitement. Overall, the band adopts a very lightweight sound on most of the tracks, ditching both any attempts at orchestration and their 'heavy' tendencies. The guitars just squeak and prick, and Kerry seems to play his vibes most of the time, neglecting pianos and organs; another prominent feature is the frequent reliance on untrivial, atonal vocal harmonies. Needless to say, the emotional impact of all these exercises is close to an absolute zero, and ninety-nine percent of the instrumentals are deadly dull, in the worst traditions of King Crimson (a la 'Moonchild' and all that).
In fact, I can only stand the first and last songs on the album. 'Interview' itself is, more or less, okay. Not that it really 'rocks' or something, even if it really tries; but at least it has some darn drive to it, with Gary pumping out these clever little bouncy guitar lines and Kerry accompanies him on the organ. And the song actually has verses which you can sing along to (a rare luck on such a record); plus, the lyrics, structured as a response to the 'interviewer', are among the band's best; the band does display a bit too much modesty when they chant 'want to be seen rock'n'roll music/don't take us something we're not', but overall the song produces a good, credible effect. And likewise, the album closer, the folk-meets-hard-rock 'I Lost My Head' is quite funny, so that I don't even notice how hard it is to follow the vocals when they don't just sing against the melody, they actually sing, like, despite the melody. I'm no musician, but I have a dangling suspicion that Kerry actually sings and Gary plays in different tempos, not to mention tonalities... Anyway, the song could be quite imaginable as filler on an average GG album; here, it's a definite highlight. Kudos to Mr Einstein.
I suppose you know what comes next - venomous, ironic, completely offensive bashing of the other five songs from the album. Well, calm down: I'd really like to bash 'em, but the problem is, I don't remember what they sound like, and my entire organism, starting from the heels, really protests against replaying the album for a sixth time (yeah, and I do think humanity owes me a medal of honour). I only remember that they are all pretty whiny and squeaky, and from time to time the band breaks into a half-cool, but also half-cooked reggae rhythm ('Design'), which only showcases their inability to do anything truly creative with it. I also remember how I used to shiver each time the dissonant, utterly chaotic harmonies of 'Another Show' disturbed my relative peace - hell, they're even nastier than 'Knots'. And I also remember that 'Empty City' was the only song there that came close to grabbing my attention with some particularly loony special synth effects and a certain desperation in Derek's voice that really suited the track's title and pessimistic lyrics.
Man, this really takes time, patience, and, above all, a lot of will to appreciate this record. Likewise, it takes a lot of will to appreciate Frank Zappa's Lumpy Gravy and King Crimson's THRaKaTTaK. And there's hardly any significant reason in this world for which I'd want to waste my time on trying to assimilate the meandering and meaningless dissonance of Interview. And don't bother telling me that the record displays a lot of technical mastership - I know what technical mastership really is, heck, I owe all of King Crimson's regular releases. This is, in fact, dull, and was probably intended as dull and esoteric.
Is it an irony of fate, then, that Interview was followed by some of Gentle Giant's most commonly accessible albums? Probably not.

I lost my head and still haven't found your ideas

Your worthy comments:

Ben Greenstein <[email protected]> (02.06.2000)

David Albert <[email protected]> (07.08.2000)

THE OFFICIAL LIVE: PLAYING THE FOOL

Year Of Release: 1976
Record rating = 10
Overall rating = 12

Seems like these guys recorded their studio albums in one take - this sounds exactly like 'em, only diversified and with far less crap than usual.
Best song: FUNNY WAYS (duh)

Nyah nyah nyah, this is Gentle Giant's one and only live album released while the band was still alive, and it kicks the shit out of any live Pink Floyd record in existence. Actually, I didn't like it at first, not at all. It has 'Knots' on it, which, as far as I'm concerned, is still the ugliest song recorded by the band, and it was a rather silly idea to pair 'Peel The Paint' with 'I Lost My Head', even if the latter is one of the best numbers on Interview. But most of all, I was somewhat offended by the fact that the tunes sounded exactly like their studio counterparts. We all know that in their prime, Gentle Giant had penned some of the most complex melodies in rock music and spiced 'em up with some of the most intricate vocal harmonies and deeply elaborate arrangements in same genre. The fact that the band could rather easily and without any obvious strain reproduce every bit of these tricky arrangements on stage is amazing - just listen to the way the band harmonizes on songs like 'On Reflection' and tell me if anybody could outperform that in that department. But after a whole hour and more of listening to these flawless, ultra professional deliveries, I kinda get bored and even disappointed. It seems as if Gentle Giant's only aim of being present onstage was to show to everybody that yeah, they did have the galls to play all these miriads of instruments and never make any mistakes in weaving the excesses of their arrangements into the already complex enough main stem of the melody. Well, as if I cared - after all, this was a necessary requirement for prog rock bands at the time: if you didn't know how to reproduce your sound on stage, you sucked among the 'serious' public (example: the Moody Blues, who could never qualify as a prog rock band partially because of their lack of 'prime live' abilities).
However, a couple more listens brought me to my senses and now I like this record more than any other in the Giant catalog, maybe with the exception of the debut album. First of all, it's not entirely true that they play the songs in exactly the same way as they were before. They lengthen some songs and shorten others, change around the lyrics, twist the numbers around and arrange them in lengthy medleys, and they even throw in 'Sweet Georgia Brown' at the end as a sweet short interlude (aptly subtitling it 'Breakdown In Brussels'). And the playlist is pretty cool, too: the band never overrelies on one album, even if they were supposed to be promoting their latest releases (Freehand and the dreadful Interview). Instead, they draw on practically every period of their career; only Acquiring The Taste is omitted completely (bar the short instrumental part from the title track in the Octopus medley), but there's at least one track from every other album.
The high point, strange as it may seem, is the Octopus medley - while I still can't share the idea that the record was the band's best, arranging all the songs in a medley really works because the result never gets boring. I wonder if that's a real coin they were flipping in the beginning of 'Boys In The Band' or a pre-recorded sound? Flipping a real coin on stage would be cool... Anyway, 'Boys In The Band' works here as a short dynamic opener (in contrast to the overlong original), then proceed to instrumental insertions from 'Raconteur Troubadour' and 'Acquiring The Taste', then switch off to 'Knots' (again, it's at least interesting to hear the band reproduce their ear-destructive vocal 'disharmonies' on stage), and after some more 'medieval jamming' switch off to the wonderous 'Advent Of Panurge' played in its entirety. It's actually great fun to hear them hop around, switching between harder and softer parts, alternating Kerry's weird synthnoisemaking with Gary Greene's pretty acoustic solos.
'Funny Ways' is another definite highlight... just because it's there, actually: it's one of my favourite GG tunes, and although I mourn the loss of the electric guitar solo, the main melody is still quite heavenly and awe-inspiring. And as for the "sharp feelings", well, you'd have to take 'Free Hand', then, another definite highlight. Ah, that vocal melody... it might just be the most catchy piece that Gentle Giant really managed to write in their 'prime years' of 1972-75. Kerry seems to be playing a million keyboards all at once on that one - how can he really do that, man? The funk hits even harder when Mr Greene puts on the wah-wah and makes the song his own by delivering a red-hot solo of an almost Jimmy Page-like stature.
Of course, it's not that I love everything on this album - this could never be. Gentle Giant always walked the thin line between 'complex harmony' and 'complex dissonance', and while songs like 'Proclamation' and 'Experience' fall in the first category, others, like 'So Sincere', would rather fall in the second one. But the main thing is to realize that there is a certain aura about this live recording that makes it stand out in a class of its own. Yeah, these guys do show off, but they're full of vital energy and they demonstrate themselves as absolute masters. I mean, other bands would take their material and drag it around the stage like lead stuck to their shoes; Gentle Giant toss their melodies around as a tennisball, changing them around, improvising at will and making it all sound far more natural and far less strained than in the studio: this, to me, is the ultimate proof to the fact that Gentle Giant made real music, after all, not just piled loads upon loads of senseless chords in order to sound 'way cool, dude'.
In other words, the record is indispensable for the 'dubious' gentlemen: it could also work perfectly well as an all-encompassing introduction to the Gentle Giant sound, better than any possible compilation. Although, of course, I can hardly imagine that a serious fan couldn't want it either.

So sincere - if you mail your ideas, I'll post them

Your worthy comments:

Ben Greenstein <[email protected]> (27.07.2000)

THE MISSING PIECE

Year Of Release: 1977
Record rating = 7
Overall rating = 9

A not too successful attempt at mainstreaming the sound: too few original melodies, really, and too much of this just plain drags.
Best song: MEMORIES OF OLD DAYS

Missing Piece starts a transitional period for Gentle Giant - a period which, unfortunately, the band was not able to survive. This is also the exact moment where hardcore GG fans usually start bashing the very kidneys out of the band, and for an apparent reason. Gentle Giant were one of these prog bands that preferred to try and 'mainstreamline' their patented sound in the light of the so-called 'punk revolution' rather than to simply disband or to bravely go on with no regards for total loss of commercial success. Therefore, those fans that welcome any kind of music as long as it's twisted and 'elitist' but cringe at the very mention of the word 'pop' find this album and especially its follow-up disgusting. But we the universal lovers, we'll try another approach, right? Let's just try thinking of this album as a record by a pop band with slight prog inclinations, rather than a record by a former prog band with mainstreamish tendencies, and...
...hmm. Guess that doesn't work. Because, all corrections made and all expectations lowered (highered? altered, in any case), I simply don't like this album very much. Sure enough, there are some good pieces of work here which I'll be discussing in a moment; but overall, the effect is fairly boring. And anyway, why shouldn't it be? Contrary to diehard prog fans' opinions, writing a good 'pop' song isn't any easier than writing a good 'prog' song, and in a certain sense, it's much harder. When you're dealing with the 'serious' stuff, you can get along on atmosphere and/or twistedness alone (as Octopus clearly demonstrates, sometimes it's simply enough to put a couple dozen different time signatures in a song to make it sound 'artistic', yeah, right); but when it's just plain 'pop' you're channelling, you have to put out catchy melodies, and that's a task worthy of a Beatle.
In other words, you don't become a good pop band out of nothing. And Gentle Giant's first try is certainly a misstep in that respect. Throwing away the tricky time signatures, the band bravely confronts modern dance rhythms as well as classic boogie woogie and generic balladeering - and one must give them their due, they don't sound as if they are playing all this stuff for the first time in their lives. But apparently they decided that sticking to the 'traditional formulas' was enough for them - did they really think that the melodies and the catchiness would come along with everything else? It didn't. Generic, casual rockers like 'For Nobody' and formulaic power ballads like 'I'm Turning Around' may not be horrid per se, but there's simply no reason for them to exist, much less any reason for them to be produced by such a band as Gentle Giant. Track after track goes virtually unnoticed by me: when they're ballads, they're slow and dragging, when they're rockers, they're... even slower and more dull. 'Who Do You Think We Are?' is pathetic, a braggard, posing, self-indulgent piece dedicated to star life, and there could hardly be anything more stupid in this life of ours than the lyrics to 'Mountain Time', which is essentially a banal lounge ditty that I could possibly expect from the likes of a Ringo Starr (on a very bad day), but not from such a respected band as GG.
But don't despair. Hope often comes when you think everything is lost. This time, it comes represented by a couple of short tunes that are fresher and somewhat more invigorating than all the rest on here. The introductory 'Two Weeks In Spain', while it does smell of corny silliness, has such an incredibly attractive, bouncy punch to it (what's that intoxicating rhythm called, I wonder? Is it even Latin American?) that anybody who dares call the song a 'throwaway' will have it up his or her throat from me... virtually, I mean. I really don't like to fight (I'm not even able.) Anyway, I was speaking of good material - well, there's also this terribly short, abruptly-ending piece of boogie called 'Betcha Thought We Couldn't Do It', with lyrics that are quite actual for Gentle Giant's 1977 status: 'I bet you thought we couldn't do it/And if you did we wouldn't try/I bet you thought we couldn't do it/But if we didn't we would die'. Well, they did it, and on this track they did it well - currently the song holds my record for 'best boogie-woogie guitar solo on a 'progressive band' record'. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, that solo is damn great. Dig it! Go, Gary, go! Show these prog cats some real rock'n'roll!
Also, I was able to forgive 'Winning' its unattractive melody because of all the weird King Crimson-ian percussion noises. But the real treat of the album is 'Memories Of Old Days', a long and fruitful nostalgic epic that's possibly the only 'potential prog' material on the record. And hey, maybe the song does not epitomize 'beauty', but it's certainly one of the most poignant and moving odes that the band had ever squeezed out. The acoustic guitars and synths (and later on, the organs) rise in a charming medieval/Easternish harmony, and Derek sings the lyrics with great passion and emotional power. It's always nice to see a super progressive band wax nostalgic, as they usually do it better than your average pop band, and it's even nicer to encounter such a great hidden gem among a sea of mediocre rubbish. At least, it'll give you something not to regret your money about (I suppose I've put an object too many in that last sentence, but hey, it's always nice to stretch the language's possibilities).
Of course, one great song and two good ones do not a decent album make. I suppose you all just take the name of the album as a hint and make this your last Gentle Giant purchase, if you're actually interested in the band at all. And yeah, I realize I rated it the same as Octopus, but Octopus is at least interesting from a technical point of view, while there's really nothing that exciting or innovative about Missing Piece. To put it another way, I mostly shake hands with GG fans for this one. But definitely not so when it comes to the follow-up...

Who do you think you are? How come you still haven't mailed your ideas?

GIANT FOR A DAY

Year Of Release: 1978
Record rating = 9
Overall rating = 11

One of the best pop albums of the 'punk epoch', gruesomely underrated by almost anyone. Don't believe 'em, believe me.
Best song: ROCK CLIMBER

I already see the endless line of flames from 'generic Gentle Giant fans', most of which go like this: 'your tastes are a threat to an intelligent listener. You dismiss this band's greatest progressive masterpieces and have the nerve to praise this pop-slop piece of rubbish? Why don't you spend some more time out of your braindead kindergarten, listening to real music that takes some time and patience to get into, instead of falling for this piece of cheese?..'
Heh heh, just made all the ensuing reader comments superfluous. This is quite a strong album, and I could care less whether it's 'prog' or 'pop'. By 1978, Gentle Giant's transformation into a 'pop' band was indeed completed: there's not even a single 'epic' track on the entire record, and most of the songs here can easily be classified as 'pop' or 'rock'n'roll', with a couple minor exceptions. But there are a couple more things that Gentle Giant fans usually omit from view. Actually, they don't really omit 'em, they simply disregard 'em, because even fans have to admit that for a 'pop' album, this is a pretty good one. And that's all I need to know. This is one of the best pop albums of 1978, and it easily beats Genesis' And Then There Were Three, released the same year: the songs are shorter, catchier, more up to the point and undeniably more energetic. (Rumour has it that there was a 'competition' between these two bands for capturing pop audiences, and Gentle Giant finally lost and had to disband. Well, one more pretext to pity the mass audiences' tastes).
Out of the ten pieces on here, I actively dislike just one or two, and it shows how much the band has matured in just one year after the 'mainstream transformation'. Perhaps the most noticeable change is that the album really rocks: the tempos are generally faster than on Missing Piece, and there's much more emphasis on the guitars than keyboards. On certain songs, there are even punkish influences to be seen - but, like every intelligent band, Gentle Giant were able to sift through the dreck and fish out the best elements of punk (speed, catchiness and energy) while dissing the worst (monotonousness, unprofessionalism and vulgarity). And the album is much more diverse than the previous one, with numbers ranging from 'prog-pop' to boogie to jazz to power ballads to acoustic ballads to, like I said, 'punk'. I'd say that 'It's Only Goodbye' is the only track here that could rank as atrocious, because in its structure and instrumentation I see the smelly traces of populist arena-rock, with 'artificially cathartic' guitar lines a la Scorpions or late Aerosmith and dumb lyrics that don't compensate for nothing. And the verses of 'Take Me' have always struck me as particularly annoying ('I'm lookin' back, my life is cryin' out/What did I do, what was I all about?'; not that I mind the lyrics, but the way they are sung reminds me of Mother Goose).
But the other numbers don't show any signs of wearing out on me - on the contrary, most of this stuff grows and grows! You don't believe me? Just look and see! No better start for an album than with the energetic, encouraging Yes-ish mantraic chant of 'Words From The Wise': yeah, I did say 'Yes-ish', because the song brings up close associations with that band's 'I've Seen All Good People' (which is one of my favourite Yes numbers), and it's just as catchy and memorable. 'Words from the wise, believe in you, all I do is believe in me'. Wonderful lines. Great atmosphere. Cool stuff. Even fans usually like it.
Then there's 'Thank You', a plaintive, sincere, heartfelt acoustic ballad that's at least three times better than Led Zep's number of the same name. The fans usually see this as a farewell song, judging by lyrics like 'thank you for staying around so long, I know it's been hard'. They may be right, too, but so much the better, as it gives the song even more emotional impact and Derek's worn-and-torn vocals even more authenticity. Pretty stuff. How can one hate this?
And the title track? Heh heh. I love that song. It sounds absolutely, totally stupid - like a cross between a Chuck Berry rocker, a Clash protest song and a Spanish guitar improvisation. Drummer John Weathers almost steals the show with his precise, bombastic crashing, but the guitars embellish the song magnificently, and the weird vocal harmonies, amusing lyrics and the pulsating drive of the keyboards underpinning the song all contribute to a nearly unique experience. While not the best song on the album, 'Giant For A Day' is definitely a unique exercise in combining musical styles and must be recognized as such. Bizarre stuff.
'Spooky Boogie' is a great jazzy instrumental, with a powerful drive and a carefully constructed, engaging melody (mighty stuff); 'Little Brown Bag' rocks along like a drunk elephant, with fresh, clear and exciting guitars all around (rousing stuff; and hey, don't you think that the vocal melody in the verses is copped from the Kinks' 'Tired Of Waiting For You'?); 'Friends' is yet another sincere, attractive acoustic ballad, this time featuring John Weathers on vocals (moving stuff); and 'No Stranger' is just a nice, pleasant shuffle with Derek adopting a strange 'consolating' intonation that makes the song incredibly warm and homely (soothing stuff).
Hmm? Oh yeah. The album closes with 'Rock Climber', a pop masterpiece that's bound to take its place in my Top 10 Gentle Giant songs, no matter what albums I'll hear next. The contrast between the odd, almost reggaeish verses, and their climactic transformation into the all-out rockin' refrain - 'Rock climber/Good timer/ Backstager/All-nighter...' - is truly addictive. Add to this the delicious electric piano introduction and the energy-filled guitar solos, and there you got it, the ultimate pop-rocker you ever needed in your entire life.
Well, I suppose I've really ran out of things to say, so I'll just state that, in my humble opinion, this is one of the most severely underrated rock'n'roll albums I've ever heard. I can see why 'progressive fans' hate it, but the only reason I can see for the All-Music Guide to have given it one and a half stars is that the dude who gave out the rating was either a 'progressive fan' himself or that he never actually listened to it, drawing his 'inspiration' from other people's opinions. Now if only Gentle Giant were a band as highly recognized as, say, Genesis, the album would be given enough praise, simply because more people would have listened to it. As such, I suppose I'm the only 'prog-pop listener' in the world that gave the record a careful listen, and so should everybody else, instead of just complaining of 'slop-pop' and 'pop-slop'. Let's hope history reinstates justice.
Also, I don't understand what is there so offensive about the original album cover, which featured a real mask that had to be cut out of the sleeve and worn on your face so you could be 'giant for a day'. To me, sounds fun. I mean, I hate masks, but there sure are people that love 'em. Carnivalesque. Groovy. Tasteless? Just don't get it. Sorry.

Words from the wise are needed; mail your ideas, please!

Your worthy comments:

Ben Greenstein <[email protected]> (04.05.2000)

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