OCTOPUS

9/10 Our more 'underground' (less well known) pick this week goes to 'Octopus'. Gentle Giant's best album can be interesting, one must listen to it several times, the music is very complex (not as complex as Tales From Topographic Oceans, but still complex) and utilizes a variety of different instruments, almost more so than Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, but even that doesn't have a xylophone solo. The album opens with 'The Adventure of Panurge' which is an epic in every sense, and changes a lot, it's a great song. 'Raconteur Troubadour' is a quirky weird British humor song. The next few songs come and go, with the occasional xylophone solo and bongos, but then you get to 'Dog's Life' which is a fun ditty about.. well.. the life of a dog, it's an adorable song. Has some xylophone. 'Think of Me With Kindness' is perhaps one of the greatest love songs ever written, I can not express how much I love this song. It's just beautiful, the lyrics, the vocals, the horns, the piano, just everything, if you listen to nothing else off of this album, listen to that. The next song is 'River', which is a nice album closer, not much to say on that. If anyone likes the weird humor of Monty Python, I recommend Gentle Giant, they're just so British, and I love them for it, also the Steven Wilson remix makes everything sound a bit warmer, it's nice.