GENTLE GIANT

The debut album of the great band Gentle Giant. This album sets of a chain reaction of outbursts within the progressive rock scenario of 70's in England, with the fantastic sound that comes from the creative giants the Gentle Giant are. This band, throughout the history of it's discography add a magical touch to their music, making it exquisitely unique in many ways, that must be mentioned before a detailed description of each album is made, so that one can understand the musical dynamics of these works of art.

When listening to any album Gentle Giant has produced, one notices immediately something very particular about the sound. It sounds, first of all, strange. The melodies are erratic. They jump, twist, shout, whisper, wriggle in all the weirdest ways, even in the debut album, which shows less of this strangeness compared to the later albums. The rhythms too, have bizarre variations, showing frequent changes in tempo that can even remind us of Math Rock. Such musical complexity is unseen within rock music until the early seventies, being, therefore, a tremendous step forward for progressive rock. Another thing that must be pointed out, are the mood changes, and this is one of the things that make it, even within the parameters of progressive rock, absolutely unique. Typically, songs of all kinds generally focus on a particular emotion or mood. However, Gentle Giant ignores this standard and with all the wild and spontaneous variation that they show in their music, produce a different mood, giving it a very, above all, rich feeling.

This musicians in this album, show us all this, but they seem to stick to a solid form of music instead of letting the wild imagination take over the music completely. Long solos, typical song moods, recognizable forms of music added into the mixture make it sound like typical progressive rock, but with a slight touch of the striking abnormal musical creativity that developed in the later albums.