THREE FRIENDS

Gentle Giant's first concept album does quite a good job of conveying a simple yet interesting concept. Although the concept isn't anything complex (childhood ends, adulthood sucks) this album features some great melodic GG music! "Three Friends" opens with the odd "Prologue" featuring some awesome synth sounds. The next track is one of my favorites on the album; "Schooldays" is a beautiful song with complex vocal patterns, and great percussion. The middle of the song is incredibly beautiful; Derek's vocal performance is one of my favorites. The jazzy outro concludes the song perfectly. The album takes a hard rock turn at this point with the song "Working All Day", musically it's a great rock track in the VdGG vein, but I feel lyrically it could have been a lot better. The next song is an absolute gem, and my favorite off the album. "Peeling The Paint" a hard hitting song with an intense guitar solo that fades into a psychedelic fugue and eventually regains intensity to finish the song with the dark and heavy chorus. Fantastic track! The next two tracks are to be considered one suite as they fade nicely into each other. The more dissonant "Mister Class and Quality" eventually morphs into the beautiful "Three Friends," a very symphonic piece of music in which all the musicians of GG shine. Beautiful choral singing and dense guitar-organ textures close the album in absolute musical splendor. Though I wouldn't call it a masterpiece this gem of an album is a good addition to any prog fans collection. 4/5