THREE FRIENDS

Three Friends is Gentle Giant's first concept album. It is less wilfully weird and generally more accessible than the previous LP Acquiring the Taste.The concept itself is quite a simple one describing three former school friends and how their lives changed in adult life. Friend1 becomes a labourer,Friend2 becomes a painter and Friend3 becomes a businessman.No musicians interestingly enough! The opening track is a great hard prog-rocker and in some ways typifies the approach they would use many times over on subsequent LPs being both complex but accessible-no mean feat. The second track "Schooldays" is one of the most moving song they ever produced describing rather wistfully the innocence and simple pleasures of being at school.There is an air of melancholia pervading this track especially as they are remembering these happy times as adults.Nostalgia has rarely been represented so beautifully in a song. The friends individual personalities and choice of occupation is represented by the musical arrangement as well as the lyrics. The labourer's song "Working all Day"is appropriately dense and plodding representing a no-nonsense attitude to life.The painter's song "Peel the Paint" is probably the best known song on the album being the only one which features in their concerts well into the late seventies at least.The music again musically and lyrically describes the "tortured artist" with a fantastic heavy minor key riff.The track is heavy and dense and it is easy to see why it is such a concert favourite.The business man's song is appropriately bouncy yet strident with a very cynical lyric.You can imagine the businessman walking briskly along only making friends where they can further his ambitions.The track segues into the rather brief title track which neatly sums up the album's themes.

Three Friends is very well recorded and is extremely easy to listen to compared to some of their albums and I would recommend it to anyone interested in investigating their music. Personally I feel that it is less adventurous musically than the follow up "Octopus" or even some tracks on "Acquiring the Taste" so I am reluctant to give it more than 4 stars