Customer Reviews

In Glass House

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This album is so ridiculously overlooked. From start to finish you are whisked away, downtown to beyond the infinite. I cried (real tears) after purchasing this masterpiece. This is brave, brilliant and off the charts. If you don't own this, or haven't heard this, you have lived an incomplete life. Complete your life and hear this. You won't be disappointed, prog fans.

Sleeve51

As a progressive rock band, Gentle Giant was always a bit different. Avoiding the virtuoso-hero ideals and overblown symphonic textures of their contemporaries, GG blended Elizabethan themes with 20th century music (Stravinsky and Bartok being obvious influences) and out-and-out RAWWK. The result was a sort of rock and roll chamber music, and whatever lyrical weaknesses they had were rendered inconsequential by their incredible sense of adventure and unbelievable contrapuntal jams. They were simply one of the very best instrumental ensembles rock has ever seen. And though they put out a number of amazing albums, "In a Glass House" is in my opinion their greatest. The diverse elements that GG showcased on their other seminal albums are all here, but in this album they are synthesized most successfully into a coherent whole that makes philosophical and artistic sense--a true progressive rock model that would make coherent sense even today, at least more so than the mellotron-driven bombast of most of their peers. Some of this stuff sounds downright Alternative--especially the dissonant, polyrhythmic prog-punk of "Way of Life." The production is intimate, driving, and crystal-clear, with John Weathers driving drums (the John Bonham of progrock) right in your face whenever he is playing. The album is emotionally and intellectually gripping throughout. In short, it is a progrock masterpiece. Buy it. P.S. The last bonus live track is rough sledding, but the first one is incredible.

If you've gotten this far on this page my review will probably be superfluous. Us GG fans have been waiting for this for a long time. I would have been happy with the original on CD, but the addition of two "in concert" tracks (Gary Green's guitar solo in the live "In a Glass House" left me gasping!) adds even more value. If you are just browsing around in the more arcane ventures of the Progressive Rock movement and have never heard of Gentle Giant, well, you've got a special treat in store. From the opening track, with its rhythmic shattering glass (imagine Pink Floyd's cash register in "Money" but with high-strung intensity) to the end (the title track which combines celtic-folk with high energy rock - and much more besides) this is one of the most inventive and powerful creations of the '70s.

I was first turned on to Gentle Giant by my friend Boone about 1987. My first taste of Giant was In a Glass House. I was hitherto and previously a fan of progressive rock, with groups such as Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, and the Beatles,being my favorites. Gentle Giant took me completely by surprise, and off guard. I liked the music, but wasn't quite sure at first. The changes in the music and the odd time signatures took me completely by surprise! After the second listening, I was completely hooked.

I also found it very unfortunate that very few people have ever heard of Gentle Giant. To me, they are right up there with Tull, Yes, and ELP as the "GIANTS" of progressive rock! I'm glad to see this come to CD finally...it will be a welcome replacement to my bacon frying LP, that also has skips in it! LOL

So, again, if you want one of the definitive Gentle Giant recordings, get this one!

-JZ

Gentle Giant survived losing a key member (Phil Shulman the oldest of the Shulman brothers in the band) after "Octopus" and went on to pull together making one of their most challenging sounding albums to date. "In A Glass House"demonstrated that the band could rise from the ashes and floursih.

First up--some comparisons. This version on Alcuard sounds less harsh than either the first Alucard and the DRT. The 2005 DRT actually sounded harsher to my ears (your mileage may vary on this particular point)than the 2002 edition. Detail was better for both of those editions than previous ones as well as clarity which you can chalk up to the master tapes or digital copies being used for both of these. There is limiting applied as well as some denoising (at the request of the band) but it isn't as obtrusive as I thought it would be. The best comparison I can think of is that this shares a lot of assets and drawbacks as The Beatles remasters.

Band bassist Ray Shulman and mastering engineer Fred Kervorkian went back to the original 1/4 master tapes to assemble this edition. Be aware that while this sounds better than either of those previous editions with a smoother sound (at least to my ears), some selective band compression was applied. I should note that it was fairly tastefully done and this doesn't have the overwhelming bad qualities of most modern remasters. The reason that Kervorkian used the selective band compression was to give the album a slightly more "modern" sound and he does succeed at doing this without betraying the overall sonic quality of the album. Dynamic range is comparable to the 2002 edition of this album.

There are a few drawbacks. The 2002 had two live bonus tracks and while they weren't essential to enjoy the album for those who didn't see the band in their prime these two tracks gave a nice hint as to how they sounded. The two live tracks (which are listed here as being part of this remaster at Amazon.com) are NOT part of the Alucard edition. The single bonus live track which was carried over from the 2002 edition for the DRT is NOT included here either.

You get the original album, the lyrics and the album graphics reproduced for this edition. That's it. The 3D style cover is not faithfully reproduced here if that matters to you.

This IS one of Gentle Giant's finest most challenging and complex albums yet it remains melodic and creative. The upside to this remaster is that the 1/4 master tapes were used to create this and that it sounds pretty good overall balancing the sound of the orignal album and a more "modern" sound.

The drawbacks are that we don't have the two bonus tracks. Detail and clarity are better here (to my ears) than some previous editions and because of the use of selective band compression as well as some of the e.q. choices, there some additional details buried in the mix that are evident on this edition.

Recommended although your mileage may vary.

On this album, GG just goes crazy. This stuff is so creative, you won't believe. The instrumentation is so varied: vibraphone, mandolin, string quartet, slide guitar, sax, and lots of great moog sounds of course. The songs are mind blowing. The main instrumental motif in the first track is so psychadelic, and in one part Derek Shulman sings a note that is unexpectedly low...you'll love it, it's so hilarious! "Experience" is one of those two-part GG songs like "Peel the Paint" and "I lost my Head". The best part in this song is an a capella section with two voices doing a contrapuntal thing. The dialogue between the two parts and the blend of the voices is beautiful. "Way of Life" is so incredibly trippy because the guitar follows a 4th below the incredibly strange vocal melody; this one might require multiple listenings before it starts to grow on you! At first it sort of sounds like the guy can't sing well, but you know that isn't the case. The title track rocks, mainly because the riff they use is so damn cool: "Shadow fills the light, until the glass house becomes the night"! This music is so fun, you'll want to dance I'm telling you. This is what prog rock is all about. Hail...

In a Glass House is a superb work of progressive rock recorded in 1973 that is complex in the traditional Gentle Giant way, yet is neither overbearing nor irritating. They achieve this through the use of subdued and warm tones, e.g. mini-moog, acoustic instruments, clean guitar etc, and yes space. Specifically, whereas the pieces on Octopus (also 1973) seemed to have notes crammed in every crack, In a Glass House allows for room in each composition through a simple process of subtraction. In addition to this, space is also intimated by including very quiet and compositionally simple passages in amongst the more complicated, and shall we say, spasmodic segments. In addition to the trademark Gentle Giant complexity, the references to medieval music are here (Experience), in addition to some nice songs (An Inmates Lullaby and A Reunion). The bonus live versions of The Runaway/Experience and In a Glass House are excellent and the recording quality is superb. The playing on In a Glass House is of course brilliant, and the skill with which the songs are arranged is without peer. Highly recommended in addition to Acquiring the Taste (1971), the Power and the Glory (1974), and Free Hand (1975).

Not to sound like too much of a fanatic, but I bought this CD despite already owning both an earlier (and now out of print) CD AND the original vinyl. I'm glad I did. This album is one of the most overlooked masterpieces of the rock era.

At the time of its original release, some people viewed "In a Glass House" as a thrown-together hash rushed to market to prove that the band could survive without the services of the just-departed Phil Shulman (older brother of bassist Ray and singer Derek). Those people were fools. No matter what criteria you use to measure artistic merit, this album has it in spades. Whether you want to talk about lyrics, composition, arrangement or performance, "In a Glass House" is breathtaking.

On this new release, the sound is better than ever before, the packaging does a great job of duplicating the look of the original vinyl package, and the bonus tracks (live versions of three of the studio album's six tracks) make a nice addition to any Gentle Giant collection. You simply can't lose buying "In a Glass House".

This CD has so many tasty snipits in it...I can't get enough of each of them. As I seem to recall, this was the last "version" of the band that I had enjoyed so much. They got much noisier down the road. This is more in line with Octopus, Acquiring the Taste and Three Friends.

I just ordered my CD so I can't tell you anything about this remastered version. But I can tell you that this is a superb album, and that this band had a level of invention and musicality that absolutely amazed listeners back in an era when invention was not uncommon. I DID hear Gentle Giant live, and were even better than their basically perfect studio records. I have bought every Gentle Giant CD I have found and I had no clue why this one wasn't out there, since it is among the best albums they have made. I'm SO glad to see it reissued, this one is a real treat.