4 out of 5

Label: Vertigo

Producer: Tony Visconti

Dear Me In High School, Working At A Music Store, And Unable To Wrap Your Head Around Much Music Before 1990:

I know you have your reasons, and I know I still have them regarding why I’ll never get into Led Zeppelin or the Beatles.  I also know you think your tastes are pretty badass, and here’s a tip from future you: YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY JUSTIFIED IN THINKING SO, YOU MUSIC GOD, YOU.  You have every right to roll your eyes and be a jerk, Schmoopy, because for all the shitey shite your buds are buying and then shucking when they get their fuckpad nanobots and load ’em up with Shit Shiners singin’ Th’ Bonk Bonk and forgetting they ever owned CDs X, Y, and Z, you will pretty much stay consistent in your tastes, the only major change being that your awesomeness grows and grows to encompass bananas stuff you’d never have glanced at before, because it was made by long-haired yahoos in the 70s.

Case in point: Gentle Giant.  People didn’t buy this CD so much, but you knew enough to lump ’em in with King Crimson or Yes or other ‘respected but often purchased by smelly people’ spacey old-man rock.  And so you wouldn’t think it’d be in your collection down the road.  And you were wrong.  But don’t beat y’self up about it, ’cause I can see where you’re coming from – the vocal harmonies in spots (‘Nothing at All’) and space guitar jazzy-jams (‘Why Not?’) peg it as somewhat dated, the latter belying the groups origins as a funk collective, but these are truly just moments in what’s otherwise a pretty stunning and surprising collection of extended instrumental interplay that winds complicated guitar and drum lines through a bouncing bass and experimental drum fills.  The group, this being its first album, doesn’t stick to any one template – song length varies, ‘Funny Ways’ and ‘Isn’t It Quiet and Cold?’ are the quiet, dainty opposites of the bold screeching of opener ‘Giant’ or ‘Nothing at All’s expansive latter half once it gets going, and then tracks like ‘Alucard’ are like a mad prog dream that bands today would love to have come up with.  The lyrics definitely occupy that psychedelic realm of wandering, not-really-mattering (‘Alucard’ doing an ‘Iron Man’ thing and dropping some meh lines about its (in-reverse) titular villain, ‘Nothing at All’ almost effective in its imagery of a girl contemplating the ripples in a pond…), but they’re also not distracting, and fit the open feel of the music well enough.

But overall, this is timeless.  The recording quality is a little shaky, the mix fading in and out at some points, but its not murky – all of the instruments ring through clearly.  The modern prog touchpoints can definitely be heard, however, even on their debut, Gentle Giant carved out a still-unique sound, and I’d be happy to try and show High School me that not all bands with a flute are necessarily Jethro Tull.