GIANT FOR A DAY

After the much disappointing Missing Piece album, GG could not manage to stop the slide that had begun IMHO after In a Glass House, but if they had managed to keep a good standard until Interview, unfortunately this was clearly less so. To say that this is not an album worthy of GG would be a great exaggeration, as from the first second of vocals of the opening Words From The Wise until the last notes from Rock Climber, this is unmistakably a GG album, and for that matter the only one to have receive any correct promotion and a dumb marketing scheme about cut-out faces right at the time that the punk movement was sweeping the media attention.

So this album confirms that GG was on a trend to simplify their songwriting to fit their possible retreat towards the US market, with some tracks close to sounding like Steely Dan (like Thank You) or very noisy (title track), quite simple (Spooky Boogie - was even marketed as a single or Friends) or plainly uninteresting (Take Me and Little Brown Bag) but the album is maybe were guitarist Gary Green makes its presence felt the most of all GG albums.

But what really irks me on this album, outside the lack of inspiration (but this was clear from TP&TG onwards) is that the vocals here sound quite irritating especially for the simplified songwriting. Clearly with this album (and confirming what TMP had announced) GG was becoming a spent force. Sadly for them, the premonitory It's Only Goodbye (they should've said Adios) makes you think that they should've quit while they were ahead. Do not get me wrong all GG unconditional fans should get this album and the ones before and after, but clearly this is hardly essential and not good enough to warrant that third star.

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