IN A GLASS HOUSE

I'm impressed to see a Gentle Giant album crack the top 20! Still, this is not my absolute favorite and I wonder at its popularity amoung fans of the band. Personally I prefer ATT and TPATG to this one. Still, this is a very good album. It was the first without brother Phil, and showed the direction they would take for pretty much the rest of their career (until the dreadful final 3 albums anyway). It contains two songs that would feature in concerts for the next few years in various arrangements (though usually segueing one into the other), Experience and The Runaway. The sampled breaking glass at the beginning was an interesting thing to hear in 1973 I imagine, as the sampling era of the 80's was far off (though I suppose it wasn't really uncommon, since Floyd did qutie a bit of this throughout the 70's). The other two long songs were of equal quality, though the title track took some getting used to for me. The two short songs are decent, with An Inmates Lullaby being the most interesting in its harking back to the album ATT (my favorite GG album). I've read here that this was a more "accessable" album than previous ones, though I really have no clue in what way that could possibly be. This album has never struck me as "accessable". I have always felt that Octopus was the one that would get that label, and have always noticed that album as the one people recommend as a starting point for GG (and I would tend to agree with that). In any case, this is a solid GG album by any standard.

I unfortuneatly bought this album back in the mid 90's on the Terrapin label, and the sound quality on my copy is rather poor (very "trebley" and thin sounding). This was on of the factors that may have kept this from being a favorite of mine. I have heard the remaster though, and it does sound much better, but it has not changed my feelings for this album. Overall I would say a solid 3.5 stars. A must if you like this band, but not a place to start for the newcomer to this band I don't think.

Share this GENTLE GIANT review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to
• Report this review (#76332)
• Buy GENTLE GIANT music online with PA partners
• Show all GENTLE GIANT MP3/Stream
• Go to GENTLE GIANT page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to In a Glass House page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for GENTLE GIANT related discussions