ACQUIRING THE TASTE

This CD is the dreariest GENTLE GIANT-album, I think. It is usually calm (with the exception of "Wreck" and "Plain Truth") and it sounds very medieval (especially "Wreck" and "The Moon Is Down"). AQUIRING THE TASTE is characterised by great musical works (just see "Aquiring The Taste", the short, but ingenious title track, or the contrapuntal flute part in "Wreck" which has great lyrics by the way). Actually it is the chill-album of GENTLE GIANT. The outstanding songs are in my opinion "Pantagruel's Nativity" (with a fantastic, short intro), "Wreck" (which sounds a bit like a sailors song; you can here a lot of folk music influences here), "The Moon Is Down" (a medieval masterpiece with lots of saxophones) and the very rocky "Plain Truth" that contains a wonderful violin-solo. Though AQUIRING THE TASTE doesn't seem to have that much power as some other GENTLE GIANT albums, it is definately a very good album!