GENTLE GIANT

With this great album Gentle Giant appears on the theatre of excellent music. The CD is one of Gentle Giant's best. Though it is a little bit easier than most of the other Gentle Giant albums until the late 70's, it is full of atmosphere and some of the songs are able to make you cry.

The album is full of ideas and little musical decorations. There is for example a shortly played melody that you can find right at the beginning and at the ending of the songs "Alucard", "Isn't It Quite And Cold?" and "The Queen".

The first song "Giant", is a very rocky song with majestic fanfares who make you think that a Giant is going up to you. A very nice, bombastic piece, if you ask me.

The second song "Funny Ways", is a sad ballad which is played with cello and violins. This song is one of Gentle Giant's best. It is a bit sad, that the great vibe-solo that Kerry Minnear, the keyboarder of Gentle Giant, played live at gigs, is missing.

The third song, "Alucard" (backwards-spelled "Dracula"), is rocky again and has an own special atmosphere and a text that could be an abridgement of a fantasy-book. I like the whole atmosphere of this song because it has something frightening but also somehow a blithefull component, something, that usually would be contradictory but because of the great musical work of Gentle Giant it fits perfectly.

The fourth song, "Isn't it Quiet And Cold?" is a catchy tune. It has nearly the same stolidness as "Funny Ways". I guess both songs resemble in their style because in both songs cello and violin are applied.

The fith song, "Nothing At All" is one of my favourite songs. It is so beauteous... This melody really comes to my heart. This song has something that seems to decelerate the time... However, it has a rocky drum-solo which breaks out of the melancholic stolidness of this song. Before it ends and fates out into the melody that is also played at the beginning, Kerry Minnear plays a quote from Liszt's "Liebestraum no.3".

In the sixth song "Why Not?", Gary Green gives his best on guitar. He is rocking nearly the whole song. The rocky sound is abruptly adjourned by a mediaeval flute part. Kerry Minnear sings with his plaintive voice: "Why not climb a hill, with someone that hates you, why not hate someone, who climbs a hill with you". Beautiful! "Why Not?" shows, that Gentle Giant had not completly found their own style in 1970, the year, when this album was released. Excepting the flute-part, "Why Not" could also be a song of a hard-rock band.

The seventh song, "The Queen" isn't meant seriously, I guess. It is the rocky version of the national anthem and is the final song of the album.

"Giant" is worth to get 5 Stars. All the atmosphere, all the energy and all the ideas, makes this album to an outstanding masterpiece of progressive music. It is NOT usual that a debut-album is so good.

Badabec.