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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