THREE FRIENDS

Well, spring is in the air and I found myself getting nostalgic so I decided to dust off "Three Friends". I have been listening to Prog. since I was in middle school (I am 22 now). Progressive Rock for me, probably like most people, was a jump-off point to more sophisticated music like classical and jazz music. I am heavily into jazz and I don't think I would be if I hadn't listened to bands like Matching Mole and Hatfield and the North. Years later, when I look back on bands that I used to listen to, I can't help being critical. Your AVERAGE Prog. Band will always come across as a pastiche compared to most other traditional music bands--mixing and matching sound, putting on the veneer of one or another music form when it suits them. Now this takes a certain type of skill unto itself, but it will never compare to greats like Bill Evans, for instance, who delved into his jazz so deeply that he became his own genre within the idiom. A jack of all trades is a master of none ect....But then there is Gentle Giant. Somehow this band and this album specifically, always holds up. Firsts off, this album is amazingly tight. The first two songs specifically," School Days" and "Prologue", are the tightest and the most visual; they are like dense musical tapestries with shifting rhythms, sounds, and dizzying harmonization (the harmonzation of the instruments and vocals are so lush and dense, Gentle Giant come across more like an orchestra than a band on these two tracks). Almost every Prog. Band does this, this is what Prog. is about; Gentle Giant does this though with a subtlety and with an attention to theme and cohesiveness and layering that other Prog. Bands try but, just don't have the musical astuteness for. These lesser band's songs always come across as an angular mess. Now as for the rest of the songs on this album, they are less dense but are beautifully done in terms of telling the story. There seems to be something special about this album in the mind of most Prog. fans and I think it is because of the storytelling. It seems that Prog. fans like Prog. music because it has the potential to be like a "musical novel". When you listen to this album you definitely feel that you're stepping into a story that Gentle Giant has created. Many Prog. Bands have tried to be authentic, many bands have tried to make a "musical novel", and very few have succeeded. With "Three Friends" Gentle Giant has done this and done it masterfully. Gentle Giant is an institution unto itself. If any Prog. Band can hold its head up with jazz and classical luminaries, it is this band..what more can you say.