Gentle Giant [Import]

Gentle Giant | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 20, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Universal I.S.
• ASIN: B000001FUI
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,254 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available

Track: 1: Giant,

Track: 2: Funny Ways,

Track: 3: Alucard,

Track: 4: Isnt It Quiet And Cold,

Track: 5: Nothing At All,

Track: 6: Why Not,

Track: 7: The Queen
Media Type: CD
Artist: GENTLE GIANT
Title: GENTLE GIANT
Street Release Date: 02/20/2007
Import
Genre: ROCK/POP

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Mighty Gentle Giant, August 24, 2003

By 

Alan Caylow (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gentle Giant (Audio CD)

What do you get when you cross the madrigal, folk-rock of Jethro Tull with the avant-garde, experimental leanings of King Crimson, and you add a dash of classical influences for extra measure? You get Gentle Giant. Always sitting next to Genesis in the music store bins, but never achieving the massive success of Genesis or other well-known progressive rock groups, Gentle Giant were certainly an acquired taste, but for the progressive rock fan who's open to the band's complex time signatures, arrangements, and vocal harmonising, there is great music aplenty to be found in their work, as the band recorded 11 studio albums (plus one live album) between 1970 & 1980. The group, led by vocalist Derek Schulman & keyboardist Kerry Minnear, were a terrific progressive rock outfit that deserved much bigger success than what they got. They never rose above cult status (and they're one of the few progressive bands to never make a comeback, either in the 1990's or now), but their impressive catalog of albums speak for themselves. If you love prog rock, then you'll certainly love Gentle Giant.Their self-titled debut from 1970 is an excellent album that displays quite plainly what this group were all about. The title track is a powerful blend of all of the band's Tull/Crimson/classical influences rolled into one. "Funny Ways" is a lovely song with fine singing & string arrangements. "Alucard" is an awesome prog-rocker. "Isn't It Quiet And Cold?" is the lightest number on the album, an acoustic/classical confection, but it works wonderfully. The exquisite, Traffic-esque "Nothing At All" is an all-time Gentle Giant favorite. "Why Not?" is a cool guitar-rocker, and the band finish the album with a short-but-amusing rendition of the British anthem, "The Queen." Gentle Giant may have lacked commercial success, but at least they had---and still have---a devoted following, not to mention a recording contract that allowed them to make a dozen albums in their decade-long lifespan. Their self-titled disc from 1970 is the first of the bunch, and an awesome opening salvo from this fine progressive rock band that should not be overlooked.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An impressive debut, promising much, August 18, 2000

By 

David J. Loftus (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gentle Giant (Audio CD)

What would you think of a band that has three different lead vocalists, plays up to 30 different musical instruments (not only in the studio but live on stage!), and mixes elements of blues, jazz, Baroque, rock, and madrigals in its compositions?

Gentle Giant was that band. A challenging quintet that put out 11 studio albums and one double live between 1969 and 1980, the Giant developed a considerable following on the European continent, and fanatical but small fan bases in the U.S. and their native Britain.

This was their auspicious debut. A bit rough around the edges, it features many of the distinctive styles that would coalesce and blossom so impressively on their fourth through eighth albums in the mid 1970s: cello and multi-tracked violin under a bittersweet ballad with a jazzy vibes solo ("Funny Ways"), heavy blues rock with delicate Baroque-style bridges on keyboard and recorders ("Why Not?" which resembles the later "Peel the Paint" or "The Runaway"), offbeat rhythms punctuated by long, humming instrumental breaks ("Giant," similar to the later classics "Just the Same" and "Interview").

"Alucard" calls to mind the Edgar Winter Group's "Frankenstein" (not surprising, since the title is "Dracula" backwards), with pounding keyboards echoed by an unobtrusive sax, but it adds chilly vocals, then blasting blues lead guitar. In contrast, "Isn't It Quiet and Cold?" is jaunty and sweet: acoustic guitar and cello support a sly lead vocal, with interjections by toy piano and "bones-y" xylophone. An experiment that fails is the gorgeously limpid "Nothing At All," whose 12-string arpeggios and lovely melody give over to a self-indulgent drum solo and Liszt's "Liebestraum," played straight on grand piano for a couple phrases before descending into jazzy free form. Also, "The Queen," known to us Yanks as "America," is a pretty weak and dated joke.

Still, this album served notice that a band worth watching had burst on the scene. It would fulfill its promise within a few short years. I give the disc only three stars because the music takes a certain level of sophistication and concentration to appreciate and might not appeal to the general listener, and because the band would do more incredible work on later albums. (See reviews of _Octopus_, _Power and the Glory_, _Free Hand_, and _Interview_. The lamented masterpiece _In a Glass House_, often out of print, is promised back in late 2000.)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice debut from one of prog rock's greats, October 30, 2003

By 

BENJAMIN MILER (Veneta, Oregon) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gentle Giant (Audio CD)

You can think of Gentle Giant's 1970 debut like you can Genesis' Trespass or the first two albums of Yes: just dipping their feet in the waters of the prog world, with a sound maybe not totally living up to their full potential, but definately worth having, after you get a few of their following albums. Prior to Gentle Giant, the Shulman brothers (Phil, Ray, and Derek) were in a band called Simon Dupree & the Big Sound. Of course there was no one named Simon Dupree (Simon was actually Derek Shulman). They released an album in 1967 called Without Reservation and had a hit with "Kites". Being from 1967, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't expect much of that GG sound here. As I hadn't heard that album, I'm sure it's more of a historical curiosity. Of course the Shulman brothers wanted to pursue something more ambitious (especially after King Crimson gave us In the Court of the Crimson King), and formed a band with guitarist Gary Green, keyboardist/vocalist Kerry Minnear, and drummer Martin Smith, and the band became Gentle Giant. They recorded and released their debut in 1970 on the "swirl" Vertigo label. Being a debut album, many bands hadn't quite had their sound or style mastered, and Gentle Giant was no exception. That meant many of the band's over-the-top quirky complexity hadn't surfaced yet. But you can see some of that like on the opening cut, "Giant". I also like the Mellotron solo as well. "Funny Ways" features some great violin work, and Kerry Minnear's trademark "medieval"-sounding singing. "Alucard" (that is, "Dracula" spelled backwards) features vocal harmonies that make me think that Queen had heard their share of Gentle Giant albums in their lifetime. Also interesting to note is the presence of synthesizers, usually as just incidental noodling between cuts. Remember this was 1970 when synthesizers were still mainly big modular Moogs, and most recordings then were still classical Moog (like W. Carlos' Switched-On Bach), except for the stray rock album (i.e. Beatles' Abbey Road, or of course, ELP, who also released their debut in 1970). "Isn't it Quiet and Cold" is a rather lighthearted number, with Minnear singing again. It's quite a contrast to the more sinister "Alucard". "Nothing At All" starts off as a rather pleasant acoustic number and nice pleasant vocals, but the problems start surfacing with the drum solo and the classical piano. At least to make it interesting was Martin Smith (their drummer at the time) added on some phasing, but then the song returns to how it started, in that pleasant laid-back fashion. "Why Not" is one of the more rocking numbers, but there's a more medieval-sounding part in the middle part complete with recorders. The last song, "The Queen" is basically a rock version of "God Save the Queen", played on guitar. I don't think that was the best move for the band, but it could have been worse. This might not be the best place for Gentle Giant newcomers to start (try Three Friends first), but still this album is full of great material, and worth having.