Album title: Acquiring the Taste
Artist: Gentle Giant
Nationality: English
Label: Vertigo
Chronology: Second
Grade: B
Tracklisting: Pantagruel’s Nativity/ Edge of Twilight/ The House, the Street, the Room/ Acquiring the Taste/ Wreck/ The Moon is Down/ Black Cat/ Plain Truth
Comments: A good title for this album, as this is something which, despite several tries, I have never managed with regard to Gentle Giant. This will be the second time I’ll have heard this album, as I spoke about it in the ProGenitors feature for 1970. Gentle Giant seem to have been the perennial runners-up, never quite making it big while nevertheless acquiring (sorry) a pretty strong fanbase. Their lack of commercial success and crossover might have had something to do with titling their songs the likes of “Pantagruel’s Nativity”. Right. Wait, what? Yeah. The sax and flute add a nice gentle feel to the opener, though I would have to say Kerry Minnear’s voice here is a few points too high on the register, making him sound like a soprano or something.
The song however doesn’t make any real impression on me, and I’ve forgotten it already. “Edge of Twilight” is slower, kind of sombre, with some nice choral effects and some Spanish guitar I think. Oh, and with a drum solo at the end. Hooray.
The vocal changes to allow Derek Shulman to sing on “The House, the Street, the Room”, and I can’t decide if he’s better, worse or the same. I encounter this problem whenever I listen to Gentle Giant; I don’t care enough about their songs to really concentrate on or hear them, and nothing stands out to me. There’s a lot of smartarse farting around with various instruments here, but it really comes across as nothing more than smartarse farting around with various instruments in order to show how sophisticated and different they are, and for me it doesn’t work. There is a good guitar solo here backed by a powerful organ.
Next we have an instrumental which sounds like the theme to some kid’s programme about fairy stories or something, followed by “Wreck”, which is beyond annoying, just so repetitive, then “The Moon is Down” has at least some nice close-harmony vocals, but sounds like something out of a movie soundtrack. Probably the best (!) so far though. There’s no way I’m going to remember any of these songs later. “Black Cat” has some lovely orchestral music in it (though I don’t see an orchestra credited: these guys use so many instruments it could be anything I guess) with a low vocal and a low-key kind of approach that, well, kind of goes nowhere. And we close on “Plain Truth”, which I’m concerned to see runs for over seven minutes. Opens with what I think is a harmonica solo then a relatively decent rocker develops: maybe they’ve saved the best for last? Wouldn’t be hard. Yeah well maybe not.
Favourite track(s): Honestly did not like anything here. Well, to be more accurate, it went in one ear and out the other
Least favourite track(s):
Overall impression: Meh. Can’t see at the moment how these guys are so well regarded in the prog scene. I’m not surprised they were never successful. Don’t think I’ll ever (you know I have to say it, now come on!) acquire the taste.
Personal Rating: 1.0
Legacy Rating: 2.0
Final Rating: 1.5