IN A GLASS HOUSE

The departure of Phil Shulman did mean that Gentle Giant lost his saxophone playing, but rather than simply replacing him the band took the opportunity to hone and tighten up their sound. This narrows the diversity of the tracks on In a Glass House a little compared with previous albums, but on the plus side this helps the band to focus on the album's concept, which centres around ideas of imprisonment, confinement and surveillance in society.

And really, even though there isn't any more sax playing from Phil we're still dealing with classic-era Gentle Giant, so the album covers far more musical territory than many of its contemporaries and shows more than enough variety and complexity to keep prog fans happy. One of the best things about Gentle Giant is their talent for creating compositions which are on the one hand extremely complex but yet at the same time are insanely catchy, and this skill is out in full force on this album. Ranging from the delicate and gentle to the wild and rocking, In a Glass House is yet another Gentle Giant classic.