THE POWER AND THE GLORY

While many consider "The Power and the Glory" to be Gentle Giant's best work, but I find it to be the point where they started going downhill. I guess it's just a matter of personal taste - this album is in no way a "sellout" as it retains all the features that have established GG as one of the all-time greats; it doesn't copy their previous efforts either, which is something the band has thankfully always managed to avoid. Yet most of the album doesn't captivate me at all, and I can't point out a song on par with masterworks like "Alucard" or "Pantagruel's Nativity" (just to name a few).

"Proclamation" is still a good candidate for a GG classic, easily being the best track on the album. With it's funky verses and excellent RIO section in the middle, it serves as a highly impressive opener. However, with "So Sincere", the band falls prey to it's own complexity, as the song has little to offer besides highly sophisticated harmonic structures - in fact, it's a bit annoying. Same goes for "Cogs in Cogs - tons of complicated counterpoint that ultimately leads nowhere. "Playing the Game" is characterized by an atrocious keyboard melody, and even strong melodic interludes fail to prevent it from being one of Giant's worst numbers (IMO, of course). With "Aspirations", the band opts for a more laidback approach, which generally works well, thanks to a slightly haunting quality to the vocals. "Valedictory" is a slowed-down version of "Proclamation", with one of the original's less significant motifs featured more prominently in a guitar riff. The remaining tracks are really nothing spectacular, especially by GG standards.

I would certainly recommend any of their first five albums over this one , although I don't want to create in impression that it's bad, for that's not the case. "The Power and the Glory" remains interesting and original to this day, and is an important part of prog history. However, it does lack in overall quality and consistency compared to the finest efforts of that era.