ACQUIRING THE TASTE

Gentle Giant's eponymous debut album had already been eclectic enough to draw attention to the intention of its members not to limit themselves to the canons of a particular genre and, on the contrary, to freely express their ideas, and with "Acquiring the Taste" (1971), the band's second album, they go a little further still with their combination of rock, jazz, medieval, baroque and blues, in an experimental and unique cocktail that defied any convention, even the very flexible and receptive guidelines of the progressive genre.

An extensive list of more than thirty musical instruments, from those traditionally used in rock to the most classic and extravagant, each one contributing their own grain of sand, complete such an avant-garde and complex work, which has its starting point in the dark atmosphere of "Pantagruel's Nativity" with the moogs and mellotrons of Kerry Minnear, Gary Green's acoustic chords and Phil Shulman's persistent sax lines, and continues with the very experimental and ghostly "Edge of Twilight" and its ritual dominated by Minnear's xylophone in sync with Martin Smith's gong and side drum, with Green's excellent bluesy guitar solo on "The House, the Street, the Room", and the string interlude of the brief instrumental "Acquiring the Taste".

And a stubborn refrain led by Derek and Phil Shulman's vocals accompanied by his brother Ray's violins and Minnear's harpsichord on the baroque "Wreck" is followed by the jazzy atmospherics of both "The Moon Is Down" and the nocturnal, mewling "Black Cat", preamble to the irrepressible rhythm dominated by Ray's unleashed violins and bass accompanied by Smith's percussion underpin "Plan Truth", the piece that closes the work.

At the time, "Acquiring the Taste" didn't make much of an impact, but the passage of time has placed it in a place of essential reference more in keeping with what the band intended: 'to push the boundaries of modern music despite the risk of being unpopular'.

4/4.5 stars