|
| Reviews
|
Biography
Gentle Giant were
one of the defining groups of the progressive rock era.
Although certainly not in the same league of commercial success,
or cultural renown, as bands like Genesis, Yes, King Crimson
or ELP, Gentle Giant were a staple band within the "second tier"
English progressive rock groups, along with bands like Camel
and Van der Graaf Generator, and were in fact hugely influential
in their own right. Gentle Giant were also, quite possibly,
the most complex and musically ambitious band of the era, blending
every possible style from jazz, rock, folk to medieval music
into a unique amalgamation delivered with blinding musical dexterity
and a dumbfounding array of instruments.
The initial core
of the band were the brothers Shulman, Derek, Ray and Phil,
who played in an R&B group called Simon Dupree & the
Big Sound. Upon coming in contact with keyboardist Kerry
Minnear and guitarist Gary Green, the classic GG lineup began
to come together. There first two albums, 1970's Gentle
Giant and 1971's Acquiring the Taste illustrating
at the growing potential of the band, and their ambitious, daring
juxtapositions of electric rock, classical and folk music.
1972's Three Friends proved to be a pivotal album for
the band, being their first American release. Momentum
had been building, and 1973's Octopus was arguably their
best album yet, and hit at a time when the "progressive rock"
genre had coalesced and the market was at its peak. However,
after the Octopus tour Phil Shulman would depart. this
momentum would be crushed when Columbia refused to release the
next album In a Glass House in the U.S., claiming it
to be overly uncommercial. 1974's Power & the Glory
was certainly their most uncompromising, anti-commerical
record yet, and effectively continued the band's extraordinary
string of artistic, if not commercial, achievement. The
1976 album, Free Hand, may have been an attempt to breakthrough
somewhat, though thankfully coming close to compromising the
band's vision in the least. In fact, Free Hand could
be argued as being one of the most successful attempts of mixing
a sense of accessibility without dumbing down the complexity.
Surprisingly, Gentle Giant would follow this with the heavily
experimental Interview, an album which would, in effect
close Gentle Giant's streak of excellence. This portion
of the band's career would see a fittingly grand conclusion
on the live Playing the Fool album.
Beginning in 1977,
Gentle Giant apparently undertook a serious attempt to crack
the commercial market. The Missing Piece, Giant for
a Day, and Civilian represented a sustained, and
certainly purposeful effort towards this end, leaving behind
the majority of their established fan base in the process.
After the albums proved unsuccessful, Gentle Giant called it
quits in 1980, yet not without leaving behind an enduring, and
formidable, legacy. Virtually all the albums from Acquiring
the Taste through Playing the Fool are essential
progressive rock releases (with the possible exception of Interview),
standing as a testament to the bands ingenuity, talent and
consistent reinvention. One of the masters for sure.
Ray Shulman would
go on to become a producer, responsible for hits from bands
like the Sugarcubes and the Sundays. Derek Shulman, in
particular, would have a very successful career in music, as
head of Warner Brother's ATCO subsidiary, he was responsible
for the singings of bands like AC/DC, Bad Company and Pantera.
Derek is now CEO and President of the renowned Roadrunner Records
label, which houses bands like Type O Negative, Machine Head
and Fear Factory. -
Greg Northrup [October 2001]
Gentle Giant is
a unique and fascinating band. By the time they "abandoned
all preconceived thoughts on blatant commercialism" on their
second album Acquiring the Taste in 1971, the idea of
a classical/rock fusion was not completely new -- the style
that would later come to be called "symphonic prog" had been
around since sometime around 1969. Gentle Giant was different
though; while Yes and ELP took their classical influences primarily
from the 18th and 19th centuries, Gentle Giant embraced the
Renaissance and the 20th century, as well as jazz and British
folk music. They also tended to shy away from the exaggerated
dramatic gestures of their peers, and moved towards a clearer,
more chamber-oriented texture starting with 1973's Octopus.
As such, they don't tend to sound particularly "symphonic";
the best term I've heard for their style of music is "chamber
symph."
Gentle Giant's
career fits approximately into three categories. From their
self-titled debut through Three Friends, their symphonic
roots are more clearly visible in their thicker textures and
occasional grand gestures. They are still in the process
of exploring their eclectic influences, and they haven't quite
synthesized them into a cohesive whole, which leads to some
wonderfully abrupt stylistic shifts. Octopus is a transitional
work, with a more contrapuntal texture and a better synthesis
of styles, but marred by a showy, pretentious attitude on a
few tracks, as well as some amazingly cheesy synths and the
ridiculously melodramatic "Think of Me With Kindness." The "classic"
albums, from In a Glass House through Interview,
show a band that has largely abandoned the pretensions of symphonic
prog, a group of five virtuosic musicians who played an average
of six instruments each, a band that wasn't afraid of extreme
complexity and had the compositional talent to make it catchy
and accessible. Gentle Giant's music of this period, in
fact, may be some of the most structurally clear complex music
ever recorded. Then, the last three albums show the band's
attempt to break into the commercial market. To be honest,
as of this writing I haven't heard any of these albums, so I
won't try to comment on their style or quality.
- Alex Temple [October 2001]
Sources:
Gentle Giant Homepage, The All Music Guide
 Gentle
Giant (1970)
This
is a respectable debut album from a band that would eventually
become one of the world's foremost progressive rock titans. On
the whole, the album is fairly relaxed, based in blues and folk
traditions, while featuring no shortage of nice, chunky guitar
riffs. There are hints of the medieval feel that would later come
to be a major part of the group's sound. Highlights here include
"Funny Ways", a soothing ballad that foreshadows Gentle Giant's
future sound to an extent, and the monstrous "Why Not?", a bluesy,
heavier song that represents the distinctive feel of this album.
All in all, this debut is a decent enough effort, but not representative
of Gentle Giant's future greatness.
- Greg Northrup [2000]
Click
Here for Tracklist and Lineup Info
 Acquiring
The Taste (1971)
Gentle Giant's
second album is often cited as being their most experimental,
along with Interview. While this is true in a way,
the type of experimentalism here is very different from the
complex dissonant counterpoint that pops up periodically on
their later albums. A lot of the musical ideas on Acquiring
the Taste are not so much "modernistic" as "just plain weird."
Take, for example, "Edge of Twilight," with its middle section
for timpani (mixed very high) and xylophone (mixed very low),
which seems to come out of nowhere. Unfortunately, it
seems that Shulman, Shulman and Minnear hadn't quite honed their
compositional skills by 1971 -- nowhere is where it goes as
well.
In fact, the main
problem I have with this album is just that -- the band seems
to have an abundance of great ideas they can't quite figure
out what to do with. While I enjoy pretty much the whole
thing, I sometimes wonder after I've listened to it what I actually
got from it. "Plain Truth" is a good example -- OK, gritty
guitar soloing that sounds like it's played on an electric violin
is pretty cool, but does it really have to take up 60% of the
song? On "Wreck," too, the band does a magnificent job
of turning the amazingly catchy hard rocking "pirate song" of
the opening into an amazingly catchy late 16th-century chamber
piece -- but then they're content to take up four and a half
minutes with nothing but those two ideas, pretty much unaltered.
And when they inexplicably throw in 20 seconds of ridiculous,
over-the-top, reverb-drenched, proto-Queen melodrama, I have
to wonder why they even bothered.
I'd say that there
are about three songs here that are really fully developed.
The opener, "Pantagruel's Nativity," must have been a real shock
to most listeners in 1971, with its inexplicably cohesive fusion
of classical sounding flute and trumpet lines, dissonant four
part harmonies, jazzy vibraphone soloing and hard rocking guitar
playing. I'll admit that I don't like it as much as many
GG fans do (for one thing, I have to make a conscious effort
not to be annoyed by the mushy synths at the beginning and ending),
but I do like it a lot. "Black Cat" is also an excellent song,
and totally unique for the band, with its slinky vocals from
Phil Shulman, syncopated violin parts and meowing keyboards
giving way to a wonderfully bizarre (if somewhat under performed)
middle section that predicts the middle of "Design" from Interview,
with its sparse percussion grid and highly dissonant contrapuntal
writing.
And then there's
"The House, The Street, The Room" -- easily the best song on
the album, and probably one of my all-time favorite Giant songs.
It's in a loose arch form, consisting of a blazing poly-modal
rock-out (bluesy minor guitar soloing over a whole-tone organ
accompaniment) surrounded by oddly-timed, aggressive vocal sections
based on diminished seventh chords and weird little chambery
passages for nearly every instrument listed on the album cover.
Here everything Gentle Giant was trying to do on the album comes
out perfectly -- the cohesive fusion of several apparently unrelated
styles into something completely unique and lacking any "thoughts
on blatant commercialism." And although most of the songs
here don't work as well as this one, Acquiring the Taste
is a testament to Gentle Giant's enormous ambition, as well
as a very enjoyable, if a bit unsatisfying, album. -
Alex Temple [October 2001]
This is one of my favorite Gentle Giant albums,
though still not quite representative of the sound they would
come to develop during their accepted "prime" years, from Three
Friends through Free Hand. This album is a great
mixture of the rock and blues influences from the debut with a
lot of progressive experimentation that would characterize the
band later. Because of this it's also probably the darkest
and heaviest of all the Gentle Giant albums. There is some
nice horns, fairly laid back vocals and a general ethereal quality
throughout, until the heaping metallic guitar riffs come pouring
through the speakers as in the phenomenal "Pantagruel's Nativity".
Another plus is that this album tends to stay away from the overt
and often annoying overly complicated and dissonant portions from
some of their later albums. This record just floats nicely
by with some powerful grooves and an overall bluesy and tangible
atmosphere, making it great for sitting back and relaxing to on
rainy days. "The House, The Street, The Door" and "Wreck"
are nice grooving tracks, while "The Edge of Twilight" and "The
Moon is Down" definitely have a darkly tangible atmospheric undercurrent
that is excellent. Overall, a highly recommended album,
but also not really that representative. Prospective fans
would do better to start with Octopus or Free Hand.
- Greg Northrup
[2000]
Click
Here for Tracklist and Lineup Info
 Octopus
(1973)
Octopus
was my first Gentle
Giant album, and for that reason is definitely a sentimental
favorite. This is the one that truly vaulted Gentle Giant
in the big leagues alongside other prog giants like Genesis
and Yes, as Octopus is definitely up to par with
many of the other great prog classics. Most of the blues
influence is gone by this point, but the band has taken
huge strides in adopting the sophisticated classical structures
and musical eclecticism that would define the future course
of their career.
Every
track on here is a winner. "Advent of Panurge" and "Raconteur
Troubador" are two defining Gentle Giant tracks, rife with
medieval atmosphere, varied instrumentation, innovative
structure and spellbinding melodies. The tender vocals of
Kerry Minnear are absolutely precious, with Derek Shulman
providing a more powerful counterpoint. "A Cry for Everyone"
is another standout song, relatively simple at first, driven
by a blazing guitar riff, but breaking down in the bridge
for a dense instrumental break and a pummeling organ riff.
"Knots" is an interesting track, featuring all the vocalists
in an angular passage where all sing different parts simultaneously.
Gentle Giant newcomers will find it off-putting, but veterans
will find it irresistibly idiosyncratic. The remainder of
the album is as excellent. "Boys in the Band" is a powerful,
driving and mind-bogglingly complicated instrumental track,
while "Think of Me with Kindness" is a beautiful balled,
adding to the melodic power of the album. This is probably
my favorite Gentle Giant album, as it is pretty much flawless
from front to back.
- Greg Northrup [2000]
 In
A Glass House (1973)
In
a Glass House
has been recently reissued, and after finally hearing it
I'm definitely not disappointed. Widely touted as one of
the absolute finest Gentle Giant albums, I definitely concur,
ranking it with perhaps Octopus as one of my favorite
album by these symphonic rock legends. The new CD remaster
features all the original songs in their full glory, with
great sound quality, in addition to a bunch of live bonus
tracks. While this is definitely a must-get for those who
have all the other Gentle Giant opuses already, it's also
not a terrible place to start exploring the band.
In
a Glass House almost epitomizes the classic Gentle Giant
sound, combining both incredible intricate parts and emotional
playing. Of course, every track on here is pretty much a
gem, though some take a little longer to grow than others.
"An Inmate's Lullaby" in particular was initially quite
boring and did very little for me, as do many of Gentle
Giant's slower tracks, like the limp "So Sincere" (from
The Power & The Glory). Other than that the album
is a nice continuation of the Octopus sound, with less of
a medieval emphasis. Also, while this one lacks the relative
dissonance of The Power & the Glory, it still manages
to foreshadow the intense, heavy energy of that album. "The
Runaway" and "Way of Life" absolutely rock, with the latter
featuring a gorgeously symphonic mid-section of pure beauty.
"Experience" starts off mellow and complex, before erupting
at the end, while "A Reunion" is an exquisite short ballad.
The highlight however is, without a doubt, the immense title
track, with its glorious main riff and a driving theme.
Like most Gentle Giant albums, In a Glass House takes
some absorbing, but overall, it ranks among the more accessible
of the band's albums. It is pure bliss from front to back,
not to mention the great sound, packaging and cool bonus
tracks that are featured on this reissue. Worth getting
if you already own on CD? I don't know, as I can't vouch
for the sound quality on any of the previous releases. If
you're unhappy with it, then by all means pick this up.
- Greg Northrup [April 2001]
It's well established that Gentle Giant
were more heavily influenced by classical music, particularly
of the Renaissance and the 20th century, than most of the
"big name" prog bands of the 70s. But even out of
their output, In a Glass House is unusual.
The structure is a Bartókian arch -- big, immediately
likeable numbers at either end, more idiosyncratic weirdness
in the middle, and quiet, lyrical pieces in the middle of
each side. The textures are more chambery than a lot
of GG: no big synths, not too much loud electric guitar,
but a lot of intricate instrumental interplay. "An
Inmates Lullaby" and "A Reunion" take this even further
in that they don't use any rock instruments at all -- just
tuned percussion and chamber strings, respectively.
Adding to
the classical feeling is the fact that the album is also
very tightly composed, without any of the long solos of
the first few albums. Indeed, the solos that do occasionally
pop up are fairly short and strictly integrated with the
complex composed grooves underneath them. Sections
like the xylophone solo in "The Runaway" (a Gentle Giant
gesture if there ever was one) have more in common with
jazz than with 70s rock. The only place where the
band really gets funky and rocks out is in the second half
of "Experience" -- even the "hard rock" bits of the title
track feel very considered.
As you might
expect, this careful construction gives In a Glass House
a somewhat more intellectual feeling than many of GG's albums.
Some might even find it cold. While this criticism
has some validity, it's more than made up for in my opinion
by the quality of the music, and in particular by the elaborate,
fully-developed structures of the songs. While some
of Gentle Giant's output tends to abandon a motif before
they've really finished using it, these songs are long and
dense, and every note counts. "Experience," for example,
is based on an idea that Gentle Giant used several times:
the foppish, twiddly, Minnear-led pseudo-Renaissance ballad
that turns into a bristling Shulman-fronted hard rock song
halfway through. This one is different, though; while
"Peel the Paint" (from Three Friends) and "I Lost
My Head" (from Interview) rely somewhat on shock
value, the opposing sections feel completely integrated
here. In fact, the instrumental part of the heavier
section is based on a bass motif that appeared earlier,
interpolated with quiet, Medieval-inflected voice and organ
lines.
"Way of Life,"
too, is a great example of the album's elaborate composition,
with its constantly shifting arrangements and motifs.
Musical ideas constantly return, but always with different
instrumentation. They also tend to be re-ordered when
they come back, so the listener is constantly thrown off-guard
when the expected motif is postponed in favor of some new
bit of development. In fact, the only song that doesn't
work so well structurally is the last one, which attempts
to cram just slightly too much material into eight and a
half minutes and winds up feeling somewhat piecemeal. Still,
the individual parts (including a far too brief bit of delicious
12-string playing from Gary Green) are good enough to keep
me listening.
In a Glass
House also has the advantage for non-symph fans of being
the furthest removed of GG's (non-pop) albums from the stereotypes
of symphonic prog. Gentle Giant was never all that
symphonic-sounding anyway, but here they take it to an extreme.
"Washing" synths of Octopus are eschewed in favor
of contrapuntal textures (at times reminiscent of ELP's
least offensive moments, if you must make a symph comparison).
The vocals have a more natural feel than on previous albums,
while at the same time being used to their limit -- witness
Kerry Minnear's amazing descent into his bass range on "The
Runaway." Melodramatic climaxes are nowhere to be
found; just when the middle section of "Way of Life" threatens
to become cheesy, it saves itself by falling into a rhythmically
ambiguous chromatic section in place of the expected last
note. All in all, this is a very impressive piece
of work, even if it's not my absolute favorite Giant album.
I should probably
address the question of whether it's worth it to get the
Alucard reissue if you already have an earlier CD version.
I would say yes, if only for the excellent first bonus track,
which gives "The Runaway" and "Experience" the driving energy
and funkiness that are the only thing missing from the album
proper. Even the second bonus track, a seemingly interminable
hard rock-style guitar solo, may be of some historical interest.
I do have to wonder, though, what possessed the band to
reissue the album in a paper sleeve. I can never get
the CD out of the damn thing. -
Alex Temple [January 2002]
Click
Here for Tracklist and Lineup Info
 Interview
(1976)
I've
never understood why this album is so underrated by GG fans.
I've heard it cited as the beginning of their downward slide,
and some even claim that it's not as "progressive" as their
earlier releases. Since this is one of the band's
most experimental albums, I'm not sure what such a claim
would even mean. The only trace of pop influence here
is the reggae accent of "Give It Back" -- and even that
is reggae in 5/8 and 7/8, with weird synth slides and chromatic
xylophone parts. I will admit that the lyrics are
some of the worst the band ever wrote, but nobody listens
to prog for the lyrics, do they?
On reflection,
I can see one way in which the album "progresses" less than
its predecessors, which is that it treads somewhat familiar
ground at times. In particular, there are very strong similarities
between this album and 1974's The Power and the Glory,
to the point that mappings can be made between individual
songs -- "Empty City" is the "No God's a Man" of Interview,
for example. Still, the atmosphere of the albums are
very different -- The Power and the Glory is clear,
keyboard-based and somewhat restrained, while Interview
is more contrasty, percussion-based, and hard-rocking.
More importantly, the songs on Interview are generally
much more complex than those on The Power and the Glory.
Take the title
track, for example. This is the "Proclamation" of
the album, a funky rocker that starts quietly and has something
surprising in the middle. The harmony, however, is
more ambiguous, with Derek Shulman's hysterical vocal line
sliding between major and minor at the end of every other
line. The "surprising" middle section, too, has more
meat to it than "Proclamation"'s (admittedly wonderful)
dissonant vocal harmonies. Here we get a fantastic
jazzy prepared piano solo, rhythmic whispered voices, and
some of the most mind-bending chromatic instrumental syncopations
this side of RIO. The song does get a bit melodramatic
towards the end, but the music is so driving and urgent
that it somehow seems warranted.
"Design"
is another fantastic song, at once the "Aspirations," the
"So Sincere" and the "Cogs in Cogs" of the album.
It opens unassumingly with Kerry Minnear singing a pretty
melody much like other Giant ballads, accompanied by two
faintly dissonant vocal chords alternating in the background.
But soon the vocals fade out, the percussion fades in, and
the music erupts into angular and disjointed vocal lines
framed by loud, rhythmically irregular drumbeats.
This, in turn, leads into the main part of the song, a four-part
atonal vocal canon over a complex grid of woodblocks, cymbals
and snare drums that recalls the mid-section of "Black
Cat" from Acquiring the Taste. After a return
of the ballad section, the song closes with another burst
of fragmentary vocalization and loud drumming. If
this is treading familiar ground, then please, tread away.
Then
there's "Another Show," which is a cross between "Playing
the Game" and "Prologue" from Three Friends, but
much harder-rocking, darker and denser. "Empty City"
has a lot in common with "No God's a Man," but is more chromatic,
and it has an unexpectedly harsh bluesy section that recurs
a few times. (It also has some annoying background
synths mucking up the texture a bit, but I can usually find
it in my heart to forgive Gentle Giant their offenses.
It was the 70s, after all.) Unfortunately,
the album starts to go downhill towards the end.
"Timing"
has nicely interlocking guitar and organ parts, and an interesting
mid-section in which dissonant violin chords face off against
bluesy piano riffing, but the vocal line is irritatingly
blocky, and Derek Shulman's vocals seem overdone and grating.
The closer, "I Lost My Head," is often considered a GG classic
for some reason; to me it seems like little more than an
inferior and more repetetive version of "Experience" from
In a Glass House. Despite
the weak ending, though, Interview is one of Gentle
Giant's best albums overall, and the claim that it's less
musically advanced than its predecessors is absurd.
Highly recommended.
- Alex Temple [October 2001]
 Playing
The Fool (1976)
This is generally considered
one of the best progressive rock live albums of all time,
and caps of a lengthy period of musical ingenuity for Gentle
Giant. The great thing about this album is hearing the
way that Gentle Giant were able to deliver all the complexity
of the studio versions in a live setting. Plus the fact
that there is a number of interesting medleys and improvisition
throughout. There is also some conscious changes made
to the studio versions that adds a nice element of surprise
and helps this album to succeed in delivering within the live
atmosphere.
The
album opens up nicely with a medley of "Just the Same" and
"Proclamation" and by the time it gets to the "Advent of Panurge"
portion of the Octopus medley, it has really hit it's stride.
The Octopus medley also contains some extensive and
totally phenomenal solo acoustic guitar passages. One
drawback is the 10 minute rendition of "So Sincere", a song
that I didn't like in th first place. However, after
that comes some highly energetic renditions of "Free Hand"
and "Peel the Paint", the latter of which definitely tops
the studio version for raw power. A great live album
that isn't simply an excuse for a "Greatest Hits" package,
this one actually has tons to offer the most devout Gentle
Giant devotee, a must-have for fans of the band.
- Greg Northrup
[2000]
|
|
