THE MISSING PIECE

You can't say they didn't warn us. On Gentle Giant's Interview - the studio album before this one - the band showed signs of wanting to experiment with musical sounds beyond the scope of the prog spheres they'd comprehensively conquered on their run of albums from the self-titled debut to Free Hand. (Give It Back, with its hints of reggae influences, was perhaps the biggest clue there).

No, 1977's The Missing Piece was not, in retrospect, such a bolt from the blue as you might think - but even so, fans may be forgiven for being shocked by the comprehensive gear shift presented here. There is a logic to the album's structure which the CD format rather obscures; in the original vinyl configuration, the last four songs - prog pieces which sit comfortably next to earlier material, if a bit simplified compared to their most complex experiments - form the second side, whilst the first side is dedicated to the band's experiments in different musical genres and approaches. This division of two halves almost makes this an implicit concept album, or at the very least follows a theme - a balance between on the one hand exploring new territory and on the other developing familiar turf.

The punkish Betcha Thought We Couldn't Do It would be the most radical departure here, but overall there's hints of influences being picked up from the rising New Wave which doubtless, after further consideration, eventually yield the sound of Civilian, the band's final studio album.

In a way, Gentle Giant were once again ahead of the curve here - most of the prog groups who would eventually adopt a more commercial sound in the face of the coming decade were still playing in broadly their old styles in 1977. (Consider that this would be when Yes were Going For the One and Steve Hackett was still in Genesis.) It's no surprise that several band members would eventually land on their feet in record company jobs cultivating new generations of talent, because here they've clearly spotted the way the wind was blowing well before many others did.

The fact that they don't seem to have a strong idea here of which direction to go in next may justifiably be considered the first sign that the band was in its waning days. Had they chosen one distinctive direction to go in and committed to it at this point, then perhaps they'd have weathered the coming storm.

As it is, The Missing Piece is, true to its cover art, much like a collection of spare jigsaw pieces - each of which offers a snippet of an interesting-looking picture in its own right, but none of which fit together to come to a cohesive whole as an album. Nonetheless, some of those individual pieces are pretty fine. The second side of the album is pretty solid, whilst the experiments of the first part will grow on you if you allow them to. It wasn't enough to save the day in the long run - but perhaps it was good enough to keep the Giant ploughing on just a bit longer.