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ACQUIRING THE TASTEGentle GiantEclectic Prog4.28 | 1827 ratings |
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jamesbaldwin
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Prog Reviewer |
The album consists of 3 masterpieces (Pantagruel, The House, Plain Truth) and 5 minor tracks, almost fillers without great
development but with various instrumental solutions.
The three masterpieces are long pieces, which alternate slow parts with a rock progression with a great Green guitar solo. Alongside
these three great songs (similar to the 4 rock songs of the first album), there is another medium-length rock piece, Wreck, with
medieval intermezzo that resembles "Why Not?" But Wreck is very repetitive in the part hard-rock, because the choral solutions make
the song proceed automatically with the rhythm, making it become a long lament, always the same, sometimes unfathomable. Wreck,
which is also pleasant in the medieval part, is the only unsuccessful piece on the album.The general climate is nocturnal, intimate, at a medium-slow pace, with medieval digressions and powerful hard-rock explosions of Green's guitar, all seasoned with wind arrangements that give a sense of orchestra, as in the first album. It is progressive rock orchestral, with solutions ranging from wind instruments to violins, and music that ranges from hard-rock to medieval, in a mix that has a great originality and that indulges only sometimes in instrumental pieces a bit offensive if not cloying. The often choral chant recalls the Gregorian chant, especially in Pantagruel's Nativity, which has a symphonic structure: a unique piece of its kind. The third song, The Home ... is the second long piece, which indulges in math rock on the edge of jazz in the soft parts and then explode with the hard-rock guitarism. The last long piece, finally, Plain Truth, is the most sustained rock piece: it has a violin wah wah, great found on the album, and a hard-rock structure that recalls (more than the other two masterpieces) the songs from the first album. Finally, there are the novelties: three nocturnal ballads, sometimes cloying. Edge of Twilight and The Moon is Down resemble both in music and in the text, which has references to reciprocal titles; Edge of twilight is slower, has an interlude suspended with percussion; Moon is Down is more rhythmic and has a beautiful fiatist interlude. Black Cat is a ballad with dissonant accompanying violins. Compared to the debut album, Acquiring is less creative, less powerful, less varied; it has no decidedly rock pieces or decidedly classical pieces, with the violins in the foreground. Acquiring presents half masterpieces and half gregarious pieces, which contribute to create a nocturnal Lp, formed largely by orchestral ballads, which find rock moments only in the longest pieces. It remains a great album, certainly valuable and original for the mix of sounds, which in the best moments are melodically inspired and well arranged, or dragging rock, and in the worst moments sound like refined arrangements but artifacts and cloying. The songs: 1) Pantagruel's Nativity 8+; 2) Edge of Twilight 7+; 3) The House 8,5; 4) Acquiring the Taste 6+ (no vote); 5) Wreck 5,5; 6) The Moon is Down 7,5; 7) Black Cat 7; 8) Plain Truth 8,5. Vote album: 8.5. Four stars.
jamesbaldwin |
4/5 |
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