ACQUIRING THE TASTE

Gentle Giant is for me really an acquired taste, as was KC and VDGG, with which this band has several elements in common. Some slow paced jazzy experimental music, with some more rocking elements interwoven through it. One of the best things about GG are the vocal harmonies, and the rhythmic structures that create a great base for melodic experimentation with sax, violins, piano and some guitar. Hardly any solo's are played, instead the band as a whole try to make a cohesive symphonic effort.

Acquiring the taste is a little bit better than their debut, but it takes a couple of spins before you will hear the intrinsic beauty of some of the songs, it doesn't keep my attention through out the album though, a problem I have with most GG albums for that matter.

1. Pantagruel's Nativity (6:50) Soft dark symphonic synthesisers introduce a soft vocal and rhythmic accoustic guitar, a bit dark sounding, with the sax providing some nice melodies. after some 2 minutes the song becomes a bit more heavy, mostly carried by the vocals, and understated rhytmic guitar. a good song, but it does take several listenings to really apreciate all the musical aspects of this almost perfect song.

2. Edge Of Twilight (3:47) A King Crimson (ITCOTCK) like soft ballad, always nice to hear, with some nice drumming and keyboards in the middle. 3. The House, The Street, The Room (6:01) The best song from this album I think, again soft passages are alternated with a more forcefull rock approach, great bass-line, and fabulous symphonication of guitar and keyboards. great song, with an hypnotising end section.

4. Acquiring The Taste (1:36) a short instrumental, some nice moments, but not really special. 5. Wreck (4:36) another typical GG vocal harmonie on a strong heavy rock groove, lots of interesting passages, especially the keyboards and the guitar shine on this song. 6. The Moon Is Down (4:45) This song starts very slow, and kind of boring, but it develops greatly into a more energetic light song (light as opposed to the more dark sound of most of the other songs on the album).

7. Black Cat (3:51) Classical inspired song, great moments, with restrained rhythms and nice play of classical instruments, really soft and smooth, I like it. 8. Plain Truth (7:36) Steady rocker, with typical GG guitar, which reminds me a bit of Early Jethro Tull, probably the most easy song to get into, nice but not really special.

An improvement on their debut, but not quite there yet, after this GG will get better, so this is a good album for their fans, but for newbies not the place to start with GG I think. 3,5 stars, and a positive recomendation for all fans.