Quebecois band Et Cetera. They only had one album released in 76 and it's a killer. Very GG.

They even influenced Spock's Beard. Even Haken who were (jokingly) nick-named Djentle Djiant. 

The fact that my brain never came up with this is unsettling to me, lmao .

(I don't think these uploads will work, so just search for yourself on YouTube. All songs of both albums are available there.)

Also, MOON SAFARI's Blomljud contains a lot of "GG-Lite"-like music--especially the vocals.

In 1979 the Soviet folk rock band Pesniary created this song, obviously influenced by Gentle Giant. But it was one song. It was not their usual style. 

Yezda Urfa, on the other hand, IS kind of like GG on crack. Some Yes-isms, but mostly in sound rather than composition. The bassist has that Squire tone, and the singer reminds me or Trevor Horn. It kind of sounds like if Drama-era Yes got even better at playing and decided to listen to every GG album and go write a bunch of wacked out tunes.

The newer group Bubblemath reminds me of Yezda Urfa, and, by extension GG (with some Zappa thrown in).

Ritual I like a lot and are a bit underrated these days. However, I don't remember hearing much GG in their music. I used to think parts sounded like a cross between the Flower Kings and Comus. :P They also remind me of Moon Safari at times.

Absolutely amazing band, forgot to mention them. Their singer/guitarist has been also singing with new version of Kaipa. Besides Hemulic Voluntary Band, I highly recommend debut and Think Like a Mountain. Gentle Giant meets folkish side of Led Zeppelin meets melodic side of Yes, with a great dose of humor. Although it has been 12 years since last album, they have been composing material for a new album, hopefully it will see a light of the world one day.

Nah, only a bit on as the world but that's about it.

It's probably not any more unknown than all the other unknown albums which makes up about 98 percent of prog.

http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=11291" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=11291

https://rtfact.bandcamp.com/album/life-is-good" rel="nofollow - https://rtfact.bandcamp.com/album/life-is-good

Maybe but I was referring to musically not lyrically. 

The Tea Club

Bumped into this yesterday...personally I have only heard a handful of those bands.

My ears must be getting old ... I listened to all the bits posted and the only one that came close to me to "sounding" like GG, is ADVENT ... and in many ways they actually also sounded more like some of the CANTERBURY stuff as well, a nice combination actually.

All in all, I think that what GG did was based on a lot of free form stuff and improvisation, and the manner in which they worked together ... like one brother making fun of a song bit and they end up using it together ... usually fun stuff that is not always seen or thought of.

I think of some of the things that GG does as simply "fun stuff" ... as if it were satirizing a lot of the music around them, specially pop music ... and then they use some Rabelais, who was known to write satires that were considered grotesque and songs that were ... we call them "nasty" nowadays, but they would be "naughty" in English words, and I don't have the French word for it. That suggests that their total attitude towards music, was almost a complete reaction to the teaching they were getting in school about music ... and made fun of it, and guess what ... it stuck! But they knew how and what they did and were able to do it again and again for many albums.

A lot of the things mentioned here, don't quite make it for me ... there is no "drive" like GG had, to be able to put together something different ... most of the stuff listed was based on riffs and material that has been done before ... and a very obvious lack of imagination when all one can do is "copy" or "emulate" someone else ... and not realize that the history of music is almost the opposite ... the war against the school and the teachings ... and the creation of something new! 

I didn't see that "revolution", or "revolt" in almost all of the material listed. I will reserve comment on ECHOLYN since I was familiar with it 20 years ago ... and I found it ... a good listen!

Wow. Calling Echolyn the american GG is really overstating it. Imo, if anyone is the american GG it is Advent.

Again, the only band I've heard that really sounds pretty close to GG through and through is Et Cetera. I'm sure a few that were mentioned before also get pretty close. I'll have to check out Advent and Miriodor at some point.

Bulgarian rock band FSB covered Gentle Giant on their debut album... without ever crediting them!

So, here's another band that was influenced A LOT by GG and is definitely not well-known.

Took the albums right otta my hands...^

Just discovered this magnificent piece of music today, enjoy!

Et Cetera(Canada 1976)

Yezda Urfa

Hands

Advent

Gryphon

Banco (a little bit)

Echolyn (a little bit)

Jethro Tull (a little bit)

 to my ears Wobbler sounds very similar to Yes.

I hope that we forget this thing about GG ... and bands that supposedly followed it ... in the end, that's like saying that Bach was not the definition of the time and place, neither was Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky and countless others ... and they all were "copied" to a degree, but I find that thought a bit on the fleeting side ... here's an example. 

So at Beethoven's time, the orchestra had risen to about 100 or more folks. And the next composers for the next 50 years had the same size orchestra, and it is really simple to say they sounded similar ... and you see this in rock music all over ... you hear a Hammond organ, and folks immediately compare it to someone else 50 years ago ... same thing is happening with the Electric Guitar, and etc, etc, etc ... where our ability to look at the playing and the music as an individual piece that has no foundation in the bit that we came up with ... heck, many musicians today, touching the Hammond the first time, have not heard a lot of the stuff before ... and the sounds they come up with have little to do with the previous bands and work.

I am almost thinking that the real issue is that we do not wish to give any credence to the musicianship around us at all ... perhaps thinking that the big names in the history of the art form, are the ones that matter, and no one today can come close ... heck, Robert Fripp is this generations Paganini and Vivaldi. (Vivaldi was known to improvise a lot -- Rick Wakeman special!) ... but we won't give him that credit, at least for his ability and design of so much music and experimentation over his life time.