Trollheart

That's not actually true. Under the new rules (which have not yet been ratified by the Troika! Come on guys: do you agree?) only the votes from Standard and Core members would count. This is to allow those who --- like, it would seem, Neapolitan --- only want to review every other album, to still join in but because they would not be as it were "taking the club that seriously", participating fully, their votes would not count in the final rating.

So essentially, Nea, if you want your votes to count then you have to become a Standard Member, which brings with it the responsibility of reviewing ALL albums --- whether you like them or not --- but with a longer timescale allowed (suggesting two weeks). If not, you become an Associate Member and can review, or not, whenever and how much or as little as you like, but your ratings will not be counted.

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Lisnaholic

I`ve just noticed you`re discussing this album, so I`d like to throw in my ten cents if that`s ok:-


Album title: Erpland
Artiste: Ozric Tentacles

Familiarity: Mrd00d or Doatar recommended this album a couple of years back, and I`ve been listening to it off and on since then.
Favourite track: Being the first track, everything sounds fresh and promising on Eternal Wheel, so that`s the one I enjoy the most. As has been mentioned, the tracks rather run together and I haven`t paid enough attention to pick another fave.
Least favourite track: Mysticum Arabicola sounds very out of place to me and gave me the impression that, having exhausted their own genre for the moment, the Ozrics thought they`d play at, or rob, someone else`s genre. That kind of dilettante approach often spells disaster imo, as it does here with Iscence as well.
End impression: In contrast to TH`s view, I feel that being an instrumental album is a major plus, which is what drew me to the album in the first place. My theory is that if you`re not going to sustain interest with the fall-back option of lyrics, your playing has to be that much better, and I think Erpland meets that challenge; all the tracks have something interesting going on.
Urban mentioned how clean the sound is - not a big obstacle for me, but he did make me aware that the clean contributes to the dated feel of this album. Likewise, the guitar and synths have a slight "done before" quality about them, but that doesn`t necessarily mean "done better"; I really loved the way the mellow of the synths complimented the bite of the guitars.
Would I want to listen to this album again? Yes absolutely, because, despite the above, I`ve never managed to play this album from start to finish yet. It slowly wears me down and I hit the off button before the end. Before they gave us such a value-for-money seventy-minutes worth, I think the band should`ve considered that ancient bit of advice for show-biz performers, "Always leave them wanting more". This album always makes me feel that I`ve over eaten musically.

Rating: Is it out of 5? I`d give this album a 4 - and will be following up on Anteater`s recommendation of Jurassic Shift. Sounds like it might be a lighter meal: thanks for the tip!

EDIT: I see from the last post that you`re running a pretty tight ship here, TH ! Just to let you know that I`m only here in passing, tbh - not even sure if I`d qualify for Associate membership!

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Unknown Soldier

It looks like Comrade Stalin has spoken.

This is the rating criteria:

Also a universal rating out of say 5, For example could be:

5.0- Masterpiece
4.5- Classic
4.0- Great
3.5- Good
3.0- Decent
2.5- Weak
2.0- Poor
1.5- Crap
1.0- Dud

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Lisnaholic

^ Thanks, Unknown Soldier ! I realized after clicking "Submit Post" that I was making the same points that you`d already made about the length and styles on Erpland. I also ditto your enthusiasm for Joe Strummer - I just love those solo albums of his!

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Trollheart

Welcome Lisna! Nice to have you here, if only in passing.
US, I'm not trying to dictate to anyone but if the last week proved anything it's that we need a fistful of reasonably dedicated members here to make sure the albums are all reviewed and properly rated. I know we're all just having fun but we should have serious fun: if we want to do this correctly and not have it disintegrate due to lack of interest we need the rules to change.

Anyone is of course always welcome (Hi Lisnaholic!) but I would like to know that there are some people we can depend on to review the albums no matter whether they like them or not. There have been a few here I have not enjoyed but I've still given it my best, and take pride in making sure I never miss a review (unless it's unavoidable). If only one or two of us does reviews this club will quickly fall apart, and I think at the moment it's doing ok so I'd hate to see it fail.

There's no point in having, say, ten people review an album one week, which then gets a high score, and the next only four do it. That skews the result. So we need to only be counting the ratings of those who we know will be reasonably certain to keep reviewing and who we can rely on. Then we know that, for instance, each album will have at least six members reviewing it, and the averages shouldn't vary too much.

Does that make sense?

Oh also, Lis: I do like instrumental albums. I just find that they need to be quite good ("Oxygene", "Oceanic", "SKY 2" etc) to keep my attention, as generally I tend to listen more to lyrics. I am of course a big classical fan so it's not that I don't like instrumental albums --- I've reviewed one or two in my journals, including a classical one --- but they need to be very good indeed. This I found was good, but not very good.

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Trollheart

Right then: Sunday has rolled around again (almost Monday now) so here's next week's spin. It comes out as number 8
which gives us

Gentle Giant --- Gentle Giant

Well this is interesting. I've heard a lot of prog fans rave about these guys but never heard any of their music.

So, reviews by this time next week please guys.

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Paul Smeenus

I asked for membership here last summer and haven't posted here since. TBH I think about it from time to time but generally I tend to have difficulty writing in a scripted, template format. And I won't be doing so today. But the topic is Gentle Giant, and I could write an encyclopedia on this topic (if it wasn't so difficult for me to type). So I will post here now.

My first reaction to this when Neapolitan linked me to the above post last night in plug was "That's the wrong Giant album". Not that their first album is a poor album by any stretch, on the contrary, had they never released an album from 1972 on I would think of them as a fine second tier progressive rock band. It's just that what they released between 1972-1976 IMO places Giant in the same discussion as the Tull-Yes-ELP-Genesis prog rock icons of the 1970's.

Since the topic of this discussion is the eponymous first album, I will review it as I see it. It displays the brilliance of arrangement, the multi-instrumentality that none of the other prog behemoths of the era could hope to attain, and the layered vocal style that would become their trademark, but it does lack the cohesion of that form that they so brilliantly honed through the pinnacle of their career. They even discuss this on their last great album (before money-driven record executives forced them to become more "pop", which produced two IMO terrible albums and one, their final album, which to my ears succeeded in melding the trademark Giant sound in a more commercially viable song structure, even though to a man the members find Civilian their worst album, I disagree, I think it's pretty good and do play it from time to time, but I digress...). From the title song of the Interview album:

"What can we tell you?
At the beginning had no direction,
Any other way
After the fourth one, realization,
Finding our road, the same as if today"

(I disagree with one element of that lyric, I think Giant truly found their legs on the third album, Three Friends, which I reviewed here)

The opening track is "Giant". We start with Kerry Minnear playing a Hammond style organ, softly leading into the full band. This is a perfect example of what I've been saying about the rudimentary Giant sound, the elements in place but not yet fully realized in the cohesive form that would follow. I like it for what it is but knowing what was ahead it comes off as comparatively ham-fisted. I don't mean that as a knock, they just hadn't fully crafted their arrangements yet.

IMO the best song off their first album, and one of the only if not *the* only song from this initial offering that was performed live throughout their career is the ballad "Funny Ways". And when I say performed live I mean faithfully, as laid down in these grooves (I have this album on vinyl and I'm listening to the transfer as I type here). This song is the one flawless track off this first album IMO.

Next is "Alucard". Again, the prototypical Giant form is apparent, the unique Giant layered vocal style makes it's first appearance on this track. The biggest problem for me with "Alucard" is that there is a kind of annoying dissonance to parts of the song that keeps me from really enjoying it. Dissonance would become a Giant trademark on future albums, songs like "Knots" and "Design" would make absolutely brilliant use of it, but again here it's not fully developed.

"Isn't It Quiet And Cold" might've found it's best fit on 1973's "In A Glass House". I really like the use of violin, especially the pizzicato sections. Their first featured use of percussive melodic instrumentation such as xylophone and glockenspiel appear in this track.

"Nothing At All" would be in the level of "Funny Ways" on this album were it not for the decision to place an extended drum solo ala "Moby Dick" as an extremely clumsy bridge section. It just doesn't work. I'd love a chance to edit that section out. What were they thinking?

(a quick sidebar on drummers. Martin Smith, who sadly passed in 1997, is the man behind the skins on the first two albums, Malcolm Mortimore takes over on the watershed third album, and from the fourth album forward the drummer was John Weathers, an outstanding musician but maybe the ugliest man in music history)

The next track is "Why Not". This is again decent enough but suffers from the same under-developed nature as most of this first record. It has a lovely mid-section and the first use of recorders (this type of recorder) that would become a mainstay of future albums and in particular future tours, I was fortunate enough to catch two of those tours (1972 and 1976). Then they unfortunalely meld into a blues outro that just doesn't fit at all

The album concludes with "The Queen", their rendition of "God Save The Queen". This was shortly after Woodstock and the famous Hendrix rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner", so I guess this is Giant doing some kind of tribute to that. TBH they should've left this track on the cutting room floor.

"Gentle Giant" is not where I would recommend starting for someone new to this great prog rock band, but I would recommend it over anything from 1977's "The Missing Piece" or especially 1979's "Giant For A Day". Start with "Three Friends" (review linked to earlier in this review), then dig into all the masterpieces that followed, "Octopus", "In A Glass House", and "The Power And The Glory". Then just below those but still brilliant, "Free Hand" and "Interview" (which does contain one very skippable track but is otherwise outstanding). They also released one of the best (and definitely least overdubbed) live albums ever made in "Playing The Fool". There have since been many DVD's released, I have "Giant On The Box" and it's amazing.

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Gentle Giant Catalog Review

The entire Ditty Bops catalog reviewed

Trollheart

Yeah, but did you like it or not?

Seriously, great review Paul and it's a pity you're not going to be joining. My own review will be up soon but just to confirm: all the albums here are taken from a list of 217 progressive rock albums one person compiled as his best, so whether it's their best or not this is the GG album we go with. We had to do that in order to bring some needed structure to the club and to have a source for the albums we wanted to review. It's a little restrictive but interesting in that we can't just all choose our favourite albums.

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Trollheart

Album title: Gentle Giant
Artiste: Gentle Giant
Nationality: British
Year: 1970
Subgenre: None
Player(s): Gary Green (Lead Guitar), Kerry Minnear (Keys), Derek Shulman (Lead voclas), Martin Shulman (Brass and woodwinds), Ray Shulman (Bass, Guitars, Violin), Martin Smith (Percussion)
Familiarity: Everyone knows of Gentle Giant: they're considered prog royalty and are mentioned in the same breath as (ahem) giants like Yes, ELP, Camel and Genesis, though they seem not to have attained the commercial success of at least two of those bands. I had, however, never heard any of their music up to now.
Favourite track(s): “Isn't it quiet and cold”
Why? It's different and fun
Least favourite track(s): “The Queen”
Why? Uh, guess...
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? I must admit there was some anticipation, sort of like listening to Yes or Genesis for the first time. I was expecting great things.
Factoids you'd like to share?
End impression: Took longer than I thought to grow on me. Even at the end of the eighth or ninth listen, I'm still not blown away though I can see why they deserve their place among the pantheon of prog's heroes.
Comments: Well I was expecting to be seriously impressed but the first track did not do it for me. It's more based around what I like to call “Harsh prog”, that is, jarring rhythms and sharp brass, sharp stabbed keyboard chords; sort of the kind of muisc that made it such a chore for me to get into Spock's Beard. The song settled down near the end which made it more palatable to me. The second was better, more relaxed but “Alucard” (groan!) set things more or less back to the way the opener went, though you can see where Queen got their group vocal ideas...

I did however like the sort of twenties feel of “Isn't it quiet and cold”? The violins are nice and as Paul said, the pizzicato really fits in with the somewhat tripping percussion and the jaunty guitar. “Nothing at all” reminds me of Kansas, very pastoral in feel and again those vocal harmonies make the song. It's a long one but doesn't seem so. It does however contain a quite silly drum solo incorporating some classical melody on the piano, though not quite. As Paul pointed out, this did not work and was a really bad idea. A real pity, as it splits the track up into two parts, the first which is good and the second which is frankly embarrassingly bad. ”Why not” is again a return to the “Harsh Prog” of the opener and as for “The queen”? Well I thought when I saw its running time that it would be a nice little instrumental, possibly medieval in style, but to find out it's basically a reworking of “God save the Queen”, well as an Irishman it just annoys me and seems pointlessly nationalistic, a waste of a track on an album that only contains seven in all.

Generally, fairly disappointed, considering these guys are so highly regarded in prog circles.

Rating: 3.5 to my own surprise and chagrin...

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Trollheart

... and now for a word from our sponsor...

Just a quick question to thrown in here guys, unrelated to the GG album: I see Asia have a new album out, but considering how awful "XXX" was, I wondered if it's even worth getting. Has anyone listened to it yet?

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