OCTOPUS

Octopus was a pretty important album for progressive rock band Gentle Giant. It was the first with drummer John Weathers and the last with founding member Phil Shulman, and I would argue it marked the true beginning of Gentle Giant's more experimental music (as if it wasn't already experimental enough). The sheer lengths Gentle Giant goes with how progressive they could make their music is stunning to me, and I have no doubt that this album deserves every last 5/5 review it has gotten. Onto the personal, like I mentioned before this was the last album to feature all the Shulman brothers and the first to feature John Weathers. The founding members Gary Green and Kerry Minnear also make an appearance on this album, with Kerry Minnear's playing on Octopus possibly being the highlight of his career. Not to say Minnear was the only highlight of this album; the entire band shines their best on this album not only in terms of musicianship but also in complexity.  

The album opens with the peaceful sounding The Advent of Panurge. The peace is quickly interrupted by John Weathers, and the band wakes up. I could instantly tell the much larger scale Gentle Giant was willing to take progressive rock, and the dynamic changes in the entire song are incredibly noticeable with each of the members (apart from John) doing their own thing while all following the same similar melody. The grand piano plays an incredible role in all of this, with some of the playing coming close to jazz rock. And from out of nowhere, the band completely stops everything to repeat most of the song again. While it might sound the same, it is still very different and seems to find its own unique complexity while still following the original path of the song. Overall, The Advent of Panurge is easily one of the greatest progressive rock album openers and is an absolute classic of Gentle Giant and their unique sound.  

Next is the much more medieval sounding Raconteur Troubadour. The opening of the song sounds more like a military march from old England, and the vocals of Derek Shulman definitely add to that feeling. The song has multiple changes in just about every aspect, and is always keeping the listener on edge about what change would come next. This song is also probably the point in Gentle Giant's discography where medieval music and songwriting is most as well as chamber music, with very few traditional rock instruments or music in the entire song. Another fantastic Gentle Giant classic, in my opinion, and a great follow up to The Advent Panurge.

  A cry for everyone brings back some aspects of the more important role the guitar had in some of their early music, while still holding on to this new style they were going for with this album. This is also probably the most normal sounding song on the album, despite it being highly progressive. At some point they'll be changing the time signature and structure three times in only a couple of seconds. The way they can transition from rapid fire jamming to coherent rhythms and then go into highly complex yet coordinated playing is beyond me, but they manage to pull it off either way.  

Now for Knots, the beginning is incredibly different from the rest of the album. Starting with simple chants from the band members, they play their instruments one at a time, all playing almost completely different from the last. It silently breaks into chaos among the men playing while still barely even playing their instruments, and for me this gives an eerie effect. The way they just repeat the same lines over and over, isolate each other's playing from each other, and yet still be coherent while in chaos seems close to a haunting effect. The band eventually comes together for the actual song, but the entire time something always seems off with the playing. I also quite like the vibraphone solo in the middle of the song; for me, it provides slight humor to the song. The band still isn't over, as it plays with more dynamics and goes from loud to quite incredibly quick and organized.

  While side one is incredible, side two opens with the only instrumental song on the album and one of my personal favorite Gentle Giant songs, The Boys in the Band. It opens with the sound of a coin rolling on a table for a while until the band explodes into not the fast-paced coordinated mayhem with John Weathers providing some incredible fills, with the horn work on this song being their peak with saxophones. And just as quickly as it began, it stops entirely this quiet tune that contains hints of beauty. And right before the band expands on it, they go right back into the original tune, this time with Green and Minnear adding their own parts to the song before it again comes to a complete stop and chills out for a second. The song remains in this normal state for a while, coming close to classic rock before bringing back that pretty part that they were just playing a minute ago, and then they once again change the music and play that opening sequence again. It's songs like this that truly capture the progressive sound of the 70s and represent what the genre was at the time.  

After that incredible performance, Gentle Giant takes a break and plays the almost entirely orchestral Dogs Life. As the name implies, the song tells the story of a dog's life, and it does a pretty. Good job at doing The only true rock instruments are the acoustic guitars that are in only certain sections of the song. This is also the shortest song on the album, being a little over 3 minutes. Even though it's the weakest song on the album for me, it has its own unique approach to chamber music and has its own charm to it.  

The next song on the album is Think of Me With Kindness, which is probably the closest the band ever came to soft rock before the late 1970s, though the song is still progressive rock. The album opens with some great piano playing and amazing harmonies from Derek Shulman. This also shows that Gentle Giant isn't just an incredibly complex and experimental progressive rock band, but also a band that can make some of the most beautiful songs in the world. Overall, it's a great love song, and it's a good way to lead into the last and longest song on the album, River.  

The song opens with some atmospheric guitar and keyboard playing, and added with strangely fantastic, uneven sounding vocals and structure, making for a great song opener. The song gets even more atmospheric as Derek seems to make his voice sound younger, along with the instruments becoming more echoey. The opening sequence repeats again before going into one of Green's greatest guitar solos with Gentle Giant. It's incredible how after seven other songs, Gary Green can still play his heart out in his solos. The song ends with another reprise of the opening sequence, which for me is a great way to end the album.  

In conclusion, Octopus for me is the best Gentle Giant record. Ranging from the quiet chamber music, beautiful piano and vocal sequences, complex, coordinated, and fast-paced playing, and the ever-changing tempo structures and instrumentation, this album is an absolute essential of progressive rock and one of the most important albums when you're starting out with the genre. Right from their debut, you could tell something big was coming from the band, and Octopus is the embodiment of the perfection you could get in their earlier albums. Octopus is 5/5, without a doubt.