OUT OF THE WOODS - THE BBC SESSIONS

First, the bad news: the first two tracks on Disc One are monophonic. After that, it's smooth sailing, with good sound quality and fine performances. There are occasional glitches in the production, but nothing major. All in all, one of the best available "live" releases by Gentle Giant.

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Posted Thursday, March 3, 2005 | Review this album | Report (Review #6301)

This is not quite a live album. The selections are from four different BBC in-studio performances. So, even though the tracks were performed by the band as a whole, as opposed to multi-tracked, they are not in front of a live audience, other than the radio personnel.

That said, having such fine recordings of live arrangements is a good thing. And, here we get our first release of City Hermit, a track left off of the first album. I must agree with the band, that song does not seem to fit in with what was released at the time. But it is not a bad song. A bit rough around the edges, the song is primarily a Kerry Minnear organ extravaganza. For the entire song, he plays with a fire you rarely hear in GG's mostly ensemble arrangements.

As for the rest of the album, the songs are great. And without the audience, all the intricacies of the arrangements come through loud and clear.

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Posted Monday, December 28, 2009 | Review this album | Report (Review #258213)

Last time I checked, there were close to TWENTY live and/or BBC session albums by Gentle Giant. So it might get a little difficult for newcomers to figure out which one(s) to get. This is one of 'em. "Playing The Fool" is their best live cd in terms of performance, sound quality and song sele ... (read more)

Report this review (#2439412) | Posted by Squire Jaco | Wednesday, August 19, 2020 | Review Permanlink

Great performance and creativity deployment. Musically this album is excelent, this is probably his best live album since 'Playing The Fool', here they gave all they had to give. However, the sound quality isn't the best and the one you hope. This is the only reason why I gave four stars inste ... (read more)

Report this review (#6302) | Posted by porcupine_boy | Friday, April 1, 2005 | Review Permanlink

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