IN A GLASS HOUSE

Without the resigning Phil, the eldest of the three Shulman brothers, Gentle Giant rethink their future and among the five remaining members they reassign tasks without looking for a replacement for the outgoing musician, and to a large extent this fact redefines their musical approach for "In a Glass House" (1972), the band's fifth album. A transitional stage that does not leave aside their experimental and colourful vein, but with less convoluted and more amiable sonorities, configuring a somewhat different approach with respect to their previous works.

Crystals breaking harmonically announce the starting point of the A-side of the album and the track "The Runaway", an exercise of lilting baroque reminiscences sustained in good measure by the friendly counterpoints between the versatility of Kerry Minnear's keyboards and Gary Green's guitar riffs that lead to a warm marimba solo by Minnear, followed by the interesting combination of percussive elements with Derek Shulman's megaphonic vocal cooing in the haunting and dreamlike "An Inmate's Lullaby", and by the contradictory "Way of Life" that intertwines an unexpected funky rhythm with a very attractive middle section of medieval airs marked again by the active Minnear on keyboards.

The eclecticism and sonic diversity of the reflective "Experience" kicks off the B-side and provides the space for one of Green's rare guitar solos (whose individual participation on the album is resigned in favour of the melodies as a whole), continues with the gentle beauty that Minnear's cello and Ray Shulman's violins lend to the brief "A Reunion", and culminates with "A Glass House", and culminates with another eclectic essay, 'In a Glass House', which features a very intense John Weathers on percussion (as on the whole album, by the way), and has the particularity of including in its final section a minimal sample of each previous song, a resource used by other bands later on, such as Queen in their song "More of that Jazz" from the album "Jazz".

Commercial success was again not on Gentle Giant's side with their excellent 'In a Glass House', a constant in the band's career, sharing such 'honours' with other generational cult groups like VDGG, Camel or King Crimson.

4/4.5 stars