Of course, sometimes even the good songs have aspects that probably could have been thought through a little better. The opening Giant, unfortunately, doesn't rock anywhere near as hard as it could in the hands of (you guessed it) King Crimson; the effective basslines, the organ swirls, the good guitar lines and the bizarre vocal melody are all fine contributions, but they're undercut by (a) Derek Shulman's decision to not put any oomph (or a growl or anything) into his vocal delivery and (b) production that minimizes the impact of the aforementioned positive characteristics. However, the mid-song instrumental passage, with a bunch of lovely minimalist organ and mellotron lines overlaying a nice bassline, intertwined with nice vocal harmonizing and majestic brass, is definitely unique in mood to the band, and makes the song incredibly worthwhile to me.

The "good-but-flawed" category also inclues Nothing at All, one of the few instances in the GG catalogue where the band goes for an 'epic' time-length (over 9 minutes - mid-length for Yes, but an eternity for GG). The opening two minutes are one of the most beautiful two minute stretches the band ever put out, with amazingly lovely vocal harmonies over a perfect pop ballad melody and mystical acoustic guitar lines, and then after that builds into a more 'rocking' version that would work just fine as a climax to the piece ... but then it turns into a nastily ugly electronic drum solo (with some piano tinklings under it near the end). ARRRGH. Yeah, it ends up going back to the original lovely melody, but man that solo leaves a nasty aftertaste. And it's unfortunately not helped tremendously by the more 'rockin' Why Not?, which has good basslines but nothing else particularly crunchy or rousing about it (though the softer sung parts are lovely). And come to think of it, the closing 1:40 The Queen (a totally random cover of God Save the Queen) doesn't seem particularly necessary, though not particularly nasty.

Fortunately, the other three tracks, sandwiched between Giant and Nothing at All, rule immensely. Funny Ways is a magnificent ballad (mostly sung by Phil Shulman, whose voice is lovely beyond words and a good contrast to Derek), with the band making good use of its versatility by mixing the regular acoustic guitars with cellos (remember, all instruments are fair game with this band). Plus, the song eventually becomes amusingly upbeat, driven by neat piano lines with trumpets on top, then becomes majorly anthemic by combining these trumpets with a fabulous guitar break. Not bad for four freakin' minutes.

Where Funny Ways shows off the band's strengths in more delicate material, Alucard shows how great the band can be in the instances where it ups the intensity. The main synth riff is absolutely KILLER, both in notes and tone, and Kerry does a great job of augmenting it as necessary to make the accompanying saxophone and guitar parts that much more powerful. Add in a lot of great organ parts and a bunch of distorted vocals fading in and out during the sung parts, and you have the first GG song that ever made me sit up and go "WOW, these guys are really cool!"

Speaking of 'cool' (or in this case, 'cold' - whee, I love stretching for segues), the final part of this glorious trifecta is a moody, playful ballad entitled Isn't it Quiet and Cold? Phil's back on lead, singing a delicate vocal melody while bunches of violins (plucked), cellos, electric piano and glockenspiel do their thing underneath. This song actually passed me by the first couple of times I heard it, and I guess I dismissed it because it was so relatively unpretentious, but I hope you won't make the same mistake. Anybody seeking proof that GG didn't just use all these instruments just because they could, but actually had a purpose and focus to what they were doing, should use this track as exhibit A.

So anyway, it's a fine debut, and my #2 for the band overall. There are problems, but the brilliant stuff is no less so than the brilliant stuff on later albums, and that should be enough.

The album also features, in many ways, the best production that would ever be found on a Gentle Giant album, providing an incredible atmosphere in places that the band never even approached attempting again. The first two tracks are particularly impressive in this regard, and get the album off to an amazing start that largely carries the rest (in terms of giving this album such a high rating). Pantagruel's Nativity is beyond amazing, combining occasional ghostly synth lines with Phil's unbelievably beautiful voice (or is it Kerry? Gah, I can't tell those two apart) with a perfect guitar line over lovely mellotrons, then bringing in all these 'melting' group harmony lines with an abrasive guitar line and running through all sorts of nice variations of these parts (I'm especially fond of the echoey xylophone). Its seven minutes seemingly pass by in a heartbeat, with every idea fleshed out as much as it deserves but not overstaying its welcome, even if the song barely has any 'conventional' structure. Of course, the following Edge of Twilight has even less of a structure, but this one definitely can get by on atmosphere alone. A nice echoey Phil vocal, a clarinet occasionally mirroring it, some bizarrely processed soft vocals augmenting the sound at times, a cute dose of harpsichord and other things, before becoming dominated by some random tympanis are what you'll find here, one of the most perfect musical manfiestations of twilight imaginable (the other, naturally, is Twilight Time by the Moody Blues).

None of the other tracks come close to those, but some are quite good. The great production of those tracks makes an appearance in the middle of Wreck - that part from 1:52 to 2:10 or so, coming back around 3:45, with that incredibly echo-laden guitar part that fades off into the horizon at just the right times, with just the right amount of mellotron underneath - and helps transform a good pirate-themed track into a near masterpiece. Yeah, it's a generic piratey track at heart (I ripped ELP for their attempt at one in Pirates, so not hating this could be considered hypocrisy, I guess), but the lyrics aren't at all stupid, and the clever use of recorders in the breaks between alternating piratey vocal melodies definitely gets my approval. Black Cat is also a well-produced little 'ditty,' with all sorts of eerie guitar effects alternating with plucked violin strings alternating with vibes alternating with ... whatever. It gets a bit overboard with dissonance in the middle, but only a bit, and the way the plucked strings manage to emerge from all the random string scrapings once more playing the melody is a nice touch.

Of the other four tracks, I'd say that The House, The Street, The Room is the most enjoyable, combining a fairly intense vocal line with a good main riff, eventually culminating in a solid, lengthy guitar solo in the middle (over the riff played on distorted organ). The 30-second blurb where they just play every instrument in sight for a second or two is kind of lame, but it kinda reminds me of being in a dark room and crashing into everything you don't want to find before finding what it was you're looking for (ie in this case the guitar).

The other three tracks, unfortunately, aren't that great. The title track is just there - it's not long enough to be totally offensive, lasting only a minute and a half, but it seemingly serves no purpose except for the band to say, "Hey, you know how we can make dissonance interesting? Well, we're just as talented at making it boring as hell!" The Moon is Down isn't much either, except for a decently pretty (in parts) mid-section, and the closing Plain Truth (7-1/2 minutes, nyarrgh) is about twice as long as it should be, serving only to let Ray wank along on his electric violin. Ehn, if I want to hear an electric violin do weird things, I want it to be entertaining, like in the band's own River or in, I dunno, The House I Used to Live In off of Frank Zappa's Burnt Weeny Sandwich (my favorite Zappa album, you see) - here, there's too many parts that just seemingly have no purpose.

Still, weak ending or no, it doesn't mitigate the jaw-dropping start. Had they managed to keep up the pace of the first 30% of this album all throughout, this might be one of my favorite albums of all time - as is, I'll just have to be content with saying it's very, very good overall. Even if it's frustratingly inconsistent, as are most GG albums.

The opening Prologue gets things off to an ok start, establishing a twisted-but-interesting instrumental theme, then there's some very quiet vocal harmonies singing lyrics that establish the 'concept', and then there's ... more jamming. Some bass-organ dueting, with layers of keys added over time, then the opening comes back, then .. whatever. Truth be told, for a band of the calibre of Gentle Giant, this jam is fairly lacklustre, but it's still ok. The following Schooldays, however, is far beyond ok, easily one of my top five tracks from the band. It's quite complex, as are all GG songs, but here every last component feels like an essential element and not just something thrown in to satisfy whomever. The vibe-guitar duet theme is fascinating, the call-and-response vocal harmonies in the "verses" are something else, and then there's the mid-section. Kerry's piano lines here are some of the most atmospheric, melodic and all-out gorgeous piano lines I've ever heard in all of prog rock - blast it all, why couldn't have fate let Tony Banks have half of Kerry Minnear's sense of taste and restraint and ... arrgh, I'm getting off topic. The vocal melody and nostalgic lyrics in the mid-section are also knock-your-socks-off quality, especially the nice touch of having a younger Shulman brother contribute "kid" voices to the proceedings.

All things must pass, however, and the next three tracks present the friends as grownups. Working All Day is about the friend who became, well, a "working man," and is a fairly compact piece with a decent brass-guitar riff serving as the foundation, around which there's some decent organ and sax jamming. Whee. Peel the Paint starts quiet, with some nice string parts here and there, and then in the third minute the bassline gets louder, and then Derek does some bellowing over the (now 'rocking') instrumental work. Then there's a bunch of jamming (notice a common theme in this review?), highlighted by a terrific guitar solo. Yup.

Mister Class and Quality showcases the well-to-do friend, and it's ok, with another decent jam occupying the middle of the song (btw, the track divisions on the CD are wrong - Mister Class extends to about 2:30 of track six, as well as obviously occupying all of track five). I like the distorted organs and the wah-wah'd guitars. Yup. Just when I'm about to give up on the album and droop from the seemingly endless jams, though, comes the harmony-and-organ laden conclusion, the glorious title track. THERE's the bizarre dose of atmospheric catharsis that I'd been waiting for since, er, Schooldays (hey, give me a break, I got spoiled on the first two albums)!

In short, the album almost seems like a bit of a tossoff to me, but I don't mean that in a bad way - parts are brilliant, parts are alright, but overall it doesn't seem like the band spent an inordinate amount of time going over and "inaccessible"-izing every second of the album. That it's a slight tossoff is not a bad thing, though - it just means that the album's quite good, not much more, nothing less.

The first side is simply incredible, led by Gentle Giant song #1 for me, The Advent of Panurge. The first forty-five seconds or so have Phil and Kerry singing a twisted (but strangely memorable) vocal melody with delightful harmonies, but just when you think it's not gonna get anymore interesting, this totally fascinating keys-guitar-bass groove pops up, which the band messes with in lots of fascinating ways. Then Derek chimes in with a brief snippet of the vocal melody over this groove, and then, oh man. The "look at my friend look around my friend" mid-section, with trumpets, all sorts of tempo and meter changes, then dissolving into another jam (with the band members muttering a bunch of random foreign words) is undoubtedly my favorite passage in any GG track. I find it fascinating when it's on, but even more impressively I easily find myself able to remember all the great themes when it's over, and will even find myself humming them on many an occasion. Then there's a return to the vocal melody of the start, then the dissonant theme pops up again, and they jam over that until the song ends with Derek bellowing, "My name is Panurge, and I have come from hell!" P.E.R.F.E.C.T.

Up next is Raconteur Troubadour, another of GG's best ever tracks. Derek's delivery is perfect for this song, as he sings one hell of a Tull-quality vocal melody (no idea why this sounds like Tull to me, it just does), while there's a great violin line that doesn't really have anything to do with the vocal melody (at least not in a way that would be obvious to a listener whose academic focus was something other than music composition) but fits in anyway. And there's a bunch of key playing that doesn't have to do with the vocal melody but also fits in anyway! Then there's trumpets, then there's a sort of awkward-as-hell (but the better for it) five second violin jig, then the catchy-as-hell discord comes back together again. ALL IN FOUR MINUTES. Likewise for the following Cry for Everyone, which has a surprisingly conventional (but still good) 'heavy' chord sequence played on guitar as its base (with a quality vocal melody to match) but then has a ton of great key lines (none predictable, all great) that go into a whack-ass band jam that go into another verse that go ... ah man, it just goes everywhere. Yet for all that it does, it doesn't lose me for a single moment.

The next track confirms my belief that the band had somehow tapped into some massive avant-prog zeitgeist that wouldn't let them screw up, no matter how awkward or clumsy the track should be by all sane accounts. Knots has to have the single most bizarre vocal harmony arrangement in the history of time, complimented by a bunch of seemingly random xylophone-led puttering (eventually led by loud, crashing piano) that should piss the hell out of me yet makes me bob back and forth with a smile on my face. The song seemingly reaches critical mass every five seconds or so, ready to totally break down and get thrown into the outtakes pile, yet it always pulls itself back from the edge, making me hum the vocal lines along with it.

The second half can't live up to the first, but it's still got its share of quality moments. I'm not totally sold on the instrumental The Boys in the Band, even though it has plenty of cool parts. I dunno, I'm almost guessing that it's the lack of sung parts, if only because the sung parts are much of what keeps up the 'accidental pop' facade in my head that makes me like the album so much. Whatever, it's a hoot while on, even if it's my least favorite of the album. A Dog's Life is better, a sort-of ballad with a lovely vocal melody over a simple acoustic guitar line, of course augmented with dissonant, strident cellos and given a whacky mid-section. It's quite nice, though not as jaw-dropping as anything from side one.

Think of Me with Kindness, graced with a lovely Kerry vocal, seems out of place here, with much less weirdness than elsewhere. It doesn't particularly go anywhere (even the instrumental break in the middle, led by a trumpet, just plays off the vocal melody), but it's quite nice, and I don't want to give the impression of the band suddenly getting a 'sellout' bug in the middle of the recording sessions - the odd (in a good way) melody in the middle is definitely something that most ballads wouldn't bother to include. But whatever, River closes things out, and whatever potential for a feeling of second-side letdown there might have been is, um, washed away (stupid unavoidable puns). The mix of an electric violin in my right ear and a wah-wah'd guitar in my left ear is definitely a sound I could stand to hear more in my life, and all the other elements, from vocal melody to great guitar soloing to production to nice "rivery" atmosphere, help make the album close out with a flourish.

So there you are. As far as I've been told, many Gentle Giant fans consider this the band's peak (at least, I hope that's true - heaven help me if I later find out Power and the Glory or Interview is supposed to be their best), and while hardcore fans of prog bands sometimes scare me, this is one time when I gladly shake their hands. So original, so fascinating ... and unfortunately, so long Phil, who took off after this album. A pity, that.

PS: For those who have followed the site for a long time, you'll be happy to know that I've avoided the curse surrounding my site that made me dread reviewing this album for a good two years. Happy days.

The main problems stem from the fact that the band decided to abandon the "slam tons of ideas into a short time period" approach for a "let's make the songs based on these ideas long" approach. Yup, the number of tracks has been cut to six, and four of them last over seven minutes; this is hardly a bad thing in and of itself, but in terms of keeping my interest throughout, the songs don't measure up to the lengthier excursions of, say, Yes. There are simply far too many moments on this album where the arrangements, while just as impressive technically as before, lull my head into a stupor and force me to fight the urge to nod off. It also hurts that the vocal parts aren't that good even by Gentle Giant standards - except for the lovely (and perfectly appropriate) delivery that Derek (I gotta admit, I was totally convinced this was Kerry until I found out otherwise. Mea culpa) gives in Inmate's Lullaby, it seems like the band (Derek especially) just included the sung parts for the sake of including them, without bothering to put any conviction behind them (which is a shame since, as mentioned earlier, the lyrics are just fine).

Still, every track on here has decent enough 'raw materials.' They may not be put to the best use, often interrupted with quieter parts that add little to my listening enjoyment, but I would be lying if I said that, when looking at the track listing, any of the songs make me gag and lament my precious lost seconds of life. I'm not big on Way of Life, which has a cool dancable (ha) foundation but little else (that is, little else that I like - there's a lot going on in the track, it's just that not much of it makes me care), but I gotta admit it's funny to hear such a thing on a prog album (especially when I know that the band saw it as complex prog and not as proto-disco). Aside from the pretty (but underdeveloped) A Reunion, though, everything has at least a few solid chunks of quality. The Runaway starts the album on an extremely high note, with a rhythmic groove formed out of samples of glass breaking (not making this up), then turns into what could be an excellent intense piece (with great tight work from everybody) with a fine vocal melody, but is instead dragged down by the total lack of effort from the vocals and extreme excess in the mid-song jam. Cut this to five minutes from seven, and I'd be a happy man - as is, I'm just a mildly content man.

The tracks bookending the second side are also quite good, though each has passages that I definitely think should have been left on the cutting-room floor. Experience starts off much like something from Octopus (both in style and quality), then eventually enters a fine groove (with a great guitar and bass line), but also meanders into generic (and in this case boring) medievalism too many times for my liking. Still, what a great groove, even if Derek's voice adds little. As for the title track, it more or less bypassed me the first eight times I listened to the album, but I think that was just a function of me being tired. A lot of it seems somewhat like Gentle-Giant-By-Numbers to me (though that's not necessarily a bad thing), but it gets great in the second half, where we suddenly get this killer hard rock groove that has bits of steel guitar here and there that closes out the album.

For all of the ambiguous praise that I can give most of the album, though, there is actually one track that I can't whine about. An Inmate's Lullaby is a perfect look inside the mind of somebody locked away in a mental institution, with odd processed Derek vocals, the best use of vibes you'll ever hear, and just such a bizarrely pleasant atmosphere that I can't help but love it. I actually almost get the feeling that Peter Gabriel, when putting together Birdy ten years later, took a listen or two to this track (if he didn't, and I'm guessing he didn't, the resemblance is freaky) - substitute the vibes for marimbas, lay on a grumbling static synth pattern and muffle the singing, and you wouldn't be that far from that mid-80's soundtrack.

So basically, it's a good album. Unfortunately, it's a noticable slip from the band's previous accomplishments - the complexity of melodies and arrangements is just as high as ever, but the ability to make the casual listener care about it is on the decline (though not gone by any means). If you're a hardcore prog fan, you might adore it, though.

The trendy choice for the worst offender is So Sincere, and I heartily agree with the WRC mob. I read an interesting comment on the Starostin site that said the track reflects "twisted logic and disingenuous political rhetoric," and thus matches the subject well with the loose, non-sensical structure and melody. Well, he may be right. And I just can't get myself to care (even though juxtapositions between subject matter and song approach often float my boat) - this is four minutes of pure discodant torture, almost sounding like a bad parody of the best Octopus moments. If you like it, good for you - as for me, I have enough things in this world to give me horrid headaches. Along those lines, I'm also not fond of Cogs in Cogs at all. Honestly, it sounds like something Genesis would have come up with on a really, really, really, really bad day, with the guitars buried in the background (playing some nice lines here and there) while Kerry wanks all over the place with keyboards that don't help much at all.

Fortunately, apart from those two monsters (and the slightly boring but not bad No God's a Man), the rest of the album is much more pleasant and interesting to my ears. The standout for me is the most 'normal' of these, the GORGEOUS keyboard-based ballad Aspirations. Yup, my pop-sellout-whore ears are once again drawn to one of the band's high quality ballads, with Kerry wooing us with his delicate angel voice in a still decidedly untrivial vocal melody, with all sorts of moody electric piano tinklings and the band allowing itself some actual resonance.

That I love the 'simple' song of the album, though, in no way means that I'm snubbing the more complex stuff. Proclamation is a terrific, herky-jerky way to start things off - that dissonant electric piano riff, with a dissonant vocal melody to match, manages to be disturbingly catchy in its own prog-funk way, and all the usual wanking doesn't hurt things at all. I could take or leave the ULTRA-discordant sung mid-section, but I have to admit that it fits the flow of the song well, making it a sort of dialogue between the new ruler and his pious followers. Similarly, Playing the Game has its own catchy vibes-and-guitar duet theme (with a funk effect on the bass), with another great (and unintentionally poppy) vocal melody to match, with some more lovely atmosphere spread here and there. And finally, aside from the closing Valedictory (a good reprise of Proclamation), there's The Face, where the violin-guitar duels of yore rear their head once more. Possibly the best jam of the album, possibly not, but a decent enough way to wind things down, even if the jam is a little overlong.

So in short, I actually like this album a lot more than I thought I did (it took a zillion listens before it got even this high for me), but it's still well below the standard GG had previously established in my mind. The balance of complexity and listenability that they'd mastered well in the beginning was getting dangerously skewed here, and that they avoided total disaster here is a testament to the innate talent of the band, even if it wasn't always used in its best way.

Indeed, the first half of this album is nigh unto perfect, easily my second favorite side from the band (my favorite, of course, is side one of Octopus). I guess that there could be more Green and less Minnear (Kerry has somehow carefully snuck his way into the dominant instrumentalist of the band, for better and less for worse, sort of), but otherwise it would be hard to come up with complaints. Just the Same gets off to a startling beginning, with snapping fingers (Those pop sell-outs! They should change their names to Alterna-Giant or Gentle-Gianternative!), but on the other hand, they're alternating from channel to channel in an untrivial rhythm, so I guess it's not that shocking. But then you hear this bouncy keyboard line that bleeds poppiness (until you realize it too is going off a bizarre rhythm), then it's echoed by guitar chords that bleed poppiness (with the same realization), then Derek sings a catchy-as-hell (but not conventional) vocal melody while all sorts of strange things are going on underneath to ... poppy effect. Yup. On paper, this combination of raw elements would look anything but memorable, but sure enough, they pull it off. Of course, it also has a bunch of nice atmospheric mid-sections, some with Gary playing slow and pretty lines, some dominated by sax-keyboard jams, none of which manage to detract from the "main" song material or seem particularly 'tacked-on.' Great stuff.

Next up is On Reflection, which has hands down the most spectacular group vocal arrangement by any art-rock band (heck, I'd say any band, but given that I'm writing this on Alleve, I don't trust myself to make total absolute statements at the moment) I've ever heard. They manage to convey a major medieval atmosphere with vocal lines that would make any modern classical composer proud, and the way they intertwine with each other, both melodywise and in the timbre of the members' individual voices, is something that I find myself coming back to again and again on this album. Of course, it's also multi-part, so there are multiple themes in which these amazing harmonies get to frolic, with reprises of the opening coming at just the right points. Yet as great as this track may be, it does not overshadow its successor, the side-closing title track. The opening is a terrific example of how complexity can still be beautiful, and the main song part, which is basically some sort of preverted progressive funk, has to be one of the best combinations of "tweaked" and "memorable" the band ever came up (that's a high compliment, of course). It's screaming out for a go-nuts guitar solo in the middle, which unfortunately never comes, but I definitely don't mind much while listening.

Unfortunately, the second side doesn't entertain me as much as the first (else it would get the band's top mark hands down). Time to Kill would sound great on, say, The Power and the Glory, but coming out of the shadow of the title track, it doesn't grab me much. Then again, even when I listen to the second side on its own, the track doesn't strike me as particularly impressive - just a decent, strange pop song. Likewise, while I like the jig-atmosphere of the closing Mobile quite a bit, not to mention parts of the melody, it still doesn't make me jump up and down for joy. As for the other two, Talybont is an ok keyboard-driven instrumental (I'll say this at least - it beats the snot out of the instrumentals on Genesis' Wind and Wuthering), but man, you don't know how much I find myself longing for some trumpets or cellos or glockenspiel. Still, this is the side that has The Last Voyage, which starts out sounding like something I'd expect on a good Steve Hackett solo album, then gets weird like all GG does inevitably does, but always remains purrty.

All in all, then, it's definitely one of the better GG albums out there. It definitely shows a regained focus at making music that makes sense while still being weird, as opposed to the last album, where the weirdness was mostly running the show. Unfortunately, the balance was about to come undone again, to ill effect.

The biggest problem, as the band members themselves have more or less admitted, is that the record was made far too quickly. The band was apparently contractually obligated to get the album out at a specific time, but instead of taking the time to go into the studio and mull over ideas they might hammer out, they instead kept touring (it's hard to blame them, as it was by most accounts their most successful tour yet). Hence, the band, which could afford haste in the recording process much less than most, had only about a month to make their Free Hand followup. The band tried to make light of their stressful situation (from the liner notes: "Bassist Ray Shulman said: 'It's OK ... it'll be completed soon after release!', while brother Derek thought they would be 'doing the overdubs in the record shops.'"), but there can be little question that it had an ill effect on them. The Gentle Giant form is there, but there's very little in the way of creative advancement or true inspiration (as opposed to using already established successes as cribnotes). I mean, for a band whose main strength is not in melody (in a traditional sense), but in throwing out twisted, eye-opening and genre-bending ideas, that's a near fatal blow.

Fortunately, while I'm not terribly enthused about most of the tracks on here, I'm also not offended by most of them. Most of them, that is; I never ever ever want to hear Design again. Now, please bear in mind that I love both Knots and On Reflection, so it's not as if I have something against the band making a piece where the front-and-center feature is the vocal harmonies. But, you see, I have no use for the band displaying its ability to sing atonal harmonies simply for its own sake - I can almost tolerate it when Kerry starts singing over the background near the start, but even that's spoiled when Derek starts singing in a different key (over the up-and-down backing harmonies), and then the band starts singing some of the most unlistenable note sequences (I refuse to call this crap a melody) I know of over chaotic (but not involving like so many of the band's chaotic moments) percussion. I can barely even believe this is Gentle Giant when I hear it - it really sounds like a sick, mocking parody of the band, possibly done by some anti-prog vehement hater of the band.

The rest is mostly alright, though. Another Show has some major aggressive kick to it, with Derek singing a desperate vocal melody over all sorts of complex organ patterns. I could do without the wanking between sung parts, which seem to just be there to get the song up to three minutes, but given additional time and care, this could have become a minor classic for mid-period GG. The opening title track also has a lot of energy, alternating between a solid organ pattern with Derek's crooning over it, some decent instrumental parts between verses (though a lot of them really sound like outtake sequences from the Octopus sessions) and this goofy piano-driven line with Kerry singing something totally unrelated. Plus, it has some truly fine lyrics when I listen for them - it's a shame my two-fer doesn't have a lyric sheet.

I should also give credit to Give it Back, which has the band doing its own perverse take on reggae. Kerry's vibes are perfect for playing along with the Carribbeany vibe, and there's even an occasional, vaguely resonant rising guitar line that helps things a bunch. Of course, much of the rest is totally automated dissonance-by-numbers, but the main material is still quite good nonetheless. And finally, the album closer, I Lost My Head, starts with a bizarre (but strangely warm) Kerry vocal melody over a bizarre folksy instrumental feel (I guess what they're doing could theoretically be called a melody, but ...), before turning into an intense rocker that has a great catchy vocal melody ... once you get yourself to sing along to it while shutting your ears from the instrumental parts underneath, which have nothing to do with it. I'm not complaining, though - the seven minutes somehow pass almost unnoticed, which the band couldn't always pull off even in its prime.

Anyway, there are a couple of other songs that don't do much but aren't that nasty (Empty City starts off pretty and then loses it by not being totally sure what it wants to do, while Timing manages to be disturbingly enjoyable while on despite how ear-piercing many of the instrumental parts are). I actually think that, given their normal time-table for recording, the band could have made these songs just as enjoyable as their average mid-period material (which isn't always stellar but is usually at least decent) - as is, I see it as a good chance wasted. I also think, though, that it's no wonder that the band completely changed its direction for its remaining studio albums - except for the brief dalliance with reggae here, these songs say almost nothing new for the band, and you won't get me to think for a minute that the band didn't notice that.

Just kidding, of course. This is a terrific live album, and probably the best introduction to Gentle Giant one can find on the market. Except for that particular horror (which actually has some decent jamming it, and a drum solo that's not so great but still sounds genial compared to the actual song), the track-listing is nearly ideal, and the performances are just stupendous.

The greatest thing about this album, and consequently the greatest thing about the band's live abilities, is that (unlike so so so many other bands of all kinds) they know how to preserve the essence of their studio recordings while changing much of the form for live performance. The songs are basically the same as in the studio, but the band members don't really show much of an over-attachment to all of the minutiae of every last note of the studio versions. Hence, all sorts of small changes are made - some jamming is cut (The Runaway is shortened considerably, yay), some is added (Funny Ways is seven minutes), some vocal sections are replaced with instrumentals (the middle "pretty" section of On Reflection, largely because Kerry felt uncomfortable singing live), and basically things are shuffled around enough to make the tracks anything but an indulgent replication of studio material. They're even kind enough to provide a fifteen minute medley of Octopus excerpts, starting with Boys in the Band (briefly), throwing in mostly acoustic renditions of Dog's Life and Raconteur, randomly inserting a snippet of Acquiring the Taste, doing the whole Knots thing with the expected precision, and capping it off with Advent of Panurge. Who could ask for anything more?!

Anyway, I can't write a very long review of this, unless I want to go into lengthy expositions on every little difference (I gotta say one thing, though - Free Hand finally got the blazing guitar solo in its midsection that I always wanted, whee) from the studio albums. I will say, though, that it would be exceptionally difficult to think of a better overall introduction to the band's hyper, jerky style. One complaint that one could raise is that they almost completely ignore the atmospheric aspects that they once pulled off exceptionally well, but on the other hand that might not have come across as well live, so I guess I can't complain. Get this regardless, and if you start to twitch during So Sincere, just hit the >> button and enjoy the bliss of Free Hand.

It's good, though. Naturally, there's a substantial amount of overlap with Official Live, but the performances are just as firey and energetic and clever as before, so I don't mind. Plus, it contains live versions of three Interview tracks not found on Official (I Lost My Head was there, but not here), so it at least has some individual value. The performances of those tracks aren't particularly amazing, but they're solid nonetheless, and reaffirm my belief that, somewhere in there, there could have been quite a good album. Interview has just as much dissonant delight as before, Give it Back amply shows that GG could handle most any genre they decided to put their minds to, and Timing ... well, the song itself is ok. However, it's capped off with a lengthy violin solo that may be overlong but nevertheless has quite a number of entertaining bits (he plays Three Blind Mice!). Plus, if nothing else, the first few seconds of Free Hand sound simply friggin' amazing, as they have Ray's violin providing the initial lead-in to the track before Kerry takes over with his keys. I dunno, there's just something so delightfully Crimsony about that moment that I can't help but be pleased.

Anyway, don't hunt high and low for this, but if you find it as cheap as I did, grab it.

As for the other side of the coin, the band showed with this album that great prog artists don't necessarily make great pop artists. I recall from a few weeks before writing this review that a discussion popped up around an idea I'd seen bantied about many places before, namely that since classical is denser and more complex, any good classical composer could sit down and in five minutes come up with a perfectly good, catchy pop song. Well, this album is a good example of one thing that's neglected by many proponents of that argument - even if, for the sake of argument, coming up with a catchy tune is easy, there is absolutely no guarantee that the artist will demonstrate any taste. There are a good number of decently memorable melodies on this album, yes, but many of them are either so formulaic or banal or cheap that I just can't stand it. So much of this album sounds like the product of a band that has utter contempt for "normal" rock music, that has no real appreciation of the genre but that thinks they can pull something off of high quality any way because they are *artists*.

Now, I don't want to give the impression that this album is the worst thing in the world, because it isn't. There are quite a few nice parts here and there (or maybe not, and they just stand out from the dung). Memories of Old Days drags on too long for my tastes, but it's extremely lovely in more than a couple of spots, especially near the end of the intro (I really like the slow keyboard parts), and it has such a nice atmosphere throughout that I can forgive it. I also enjoy the hell out of the boogie-rocker Betcha Thought We Couldn't Do It (indeed), with its fine guitar solo in the middle, as well as (to a lesser extent) the opening Two Weeks in Spain, with its bizarrely poppy, punchy guitar line that must have given a heart attack to GG fans the first time they heard it. I also like some bits of other songs, like the pleasant initial melody of the obligatory Kerry-sung piece (As Old as You're Young) or the percussion of Winning (which otherwise stinks) and the proggish intro to the closing For Nobody (which becomes boring as hell afterwards). So yeah, the album isn't a wasteland.

The other three songs, though, just make me grip my head in pain. I'm Turning Around starts off more-or-less ok, but as soon as it turns into a massively generic AOR monster-ballad, I find myself shuddering and begging for the end of this four-minute torment. Then, after Betcha Thought, we hit a couple of tracks that, for me, prove my theory that these guys really didn't know what the heck they were doing. Who Do You Think You are? is a MISERABLE mid-tempo rocker that pretends to be this cool, swaggering piece of music that really just makes me want to punch the band in its boring collective head, and Mountain Time is just about the very definition of what I'd consider bad rock music. Man, I can just imagine the band sitting around and suddenly going, "Hey, you know what would make this song better? Generic female backing vocals to go with our generic half-assed 'jazzy' melody! We're so hip!"

Anyway, there you have your half-assed "metamorphosis." I guess I could bump this up from a 6 to a low 7, but given that I only enjoy a third of the songs in their entirety, am ambivalent to a second third, and absolutely sickened by the other third, that would be a bit excessive. Only for completists (though completists would have to be hardcore fans, and no hardcore GG fan that I can imagine would be jumping at the bit to hear this).

One big difference between this and the last album is that the long stretches of tastelessness that abounded on Piece are mostly eradicated here - some of the songs entertain me less than others, sure, but only one of them (the power ballad It's Only Goodbye) makes me wretch in disgust. Otherwise, the album's largely a fascinating exercise in style, one that shows the band occasionally using its experiences in other genres to influence the ideas shown here, without directly cribbing from their previous albums. For instance, we have the opening Words from the Wise, which starts off by showcasing the band's great vocal harmonies, but in a straightup poppy manner instead of the modern classical stylings of On Reflection. Even haters of this period of the band tend to like this song (probably because of those same vocal harmonies), even though its gloriously catchy (yet involved) verse melody and chorus bleed poppy goodness at all points.

Or, if you're a fan of the band's long stretches of no vocals, there's a hilarious instrumental called Spooky Boogie, which uses occasional quiet dissonant keyboard chords to provide a "scary" effect as an augmentation to the nice, jazzy melody. And if you're a fan of the band's ability to combine styles that should have nothing to do with each other, then the title track is for you. Vaguely punkish, with a simple nagging guitar/keyboard pattern driving it forward, as well as booming drumming, it shows a band willing to make a total fool of itself and come up with something extremely entertaining in the process.

The other songs are basically "conventional," but they're at worst nice and at best great, so I'm definitely in no position to complain. Thank You is an EXCELLENT acoustic pop ballad, with totally non-trivial chord sequences, a nice vocal performance from Derek (one thing I should note - I like Derek's voice more on this album than I did on the "classic" GG albums. Fancy that.), moving lyrics, and of course those little subtle guitar augmentations in the background. Little Brown Bag is a terrific, punchy rocker, with Derek bellowing in a convincing manner, Kerry sounding like he spent hours listening to Gary Brooker's playing on Exotic Birds and Fruit (another example of an art-rock band turning to a 'simpler' sound to great effect) and Gary's guitars sounding like Keith Richards pounding out those crisp lines.

I'm also quite partial to Friends, which is a solid two-minute acoustic ballad, with John Weathers (drums) on vocals, and all sorts of nice acoustic flourishes underneath the good vocal melody. And of course, there's the brilliant closer Rock Climber, which took me a couple of listens to like (don't know why), but that I'll likely enjoy for the rest of my life. Man, who would've thought that the prog band that would be able to do real rock'n'roll the best would be Gentle Giant, the band for people who thought rock'n'roll was retched'n'retarded...

The other two songs (Take Me, which has a nice chorus but that took me a zillion listens to remember how the song goes, and the nice-but-head-drooping No Stranger) aren't as good, but definitely not bad either. Add up these ten songs, and you have an extremely solid album that, through no fault of its own, completely fell between the cracks of history. Hardcore GG fans will probably hang me in effigy for liking this more than Glass House or Glory, but I really wish they'd reconsider and accept the possibility that there can, in fact, be such a thing as a very good pop album. Like, say, this one.

The really good news, if you're a GG hardcore, is that the album shows a significant departure from the happy, "simplistic" pop of Giant for a Day (of course, I liked all of that happy simple pop, but your mileage may vary). This is immediately shown in the opening Convenience (Clean and Easy) - the song is catchy (to me), and the rhythm is fairly straightforward, but the main keyboard/vocal melody has nice bits of discord, so no fan should immediately jerk up like they might have during Thank You from the last album. The song kinda reminds me of the Police's Omegaman, which would come out the following year, and given that that's one of my favorite Police songs, that can only be a compliment. Plus, it has decent lyrics, with subtle cynicism towards the "improvements" that modern life has given society (themes like this, the whole detachment from society bit, run through the whole album). Just a solid New Wave rock song, that's what that is.

Not as good as the following All Through the Night, though, which takes hundred of 80's metal bands to school with its incredible riff. Man, Gary may not have been as incredible chopswise as some of his prog counterparts (though he wasn't dreadfully far behind), but he really understood how to make his parts interesting, and above all (as songs like this show) he knew how to ROCK as well as most "regular" guitarists did. Of course, it's not just Gary's riff that makes the song so special, but rather there's also Derek's terrific delivery, especially in the chorus. I get a little bugged that the coda is dragged out too long, but that's a flaw I'm willing to forgive, especially since Kerry is kind enough to put some subtle key embellishments in the background near the end.

Most of the rest of the album, unfortunately, isn't quite as distinctive as this opening salvo, but that doesn't mean I dislike the tracks. It's just that this is a clear case of lack of diversity hurting an album, if only because I have to strain like mad to remember which song had what aspect to it. Ah well, it's no big loss. I may not remember Kerry's ballad Shadows on the Street start to finish, but I remember the melody being pretty, and I especially remember the lovely sound of his rolling keys coming out of the end of Night, providing a lovely contrast. I remember Underground sounding, as I was told it would, like a solid Police outtake, with a busy-yet-controlled bassline providing a good foundation, and with the guitars and keys leading the track through a few interesting themes. And hey, I remember I am a Camera largely beating the snot out of Yes' Into the Lens, if only because it has nothing like the momentum-killing "I am a camera *dead space*" chorus of that Drama piece. How it goes beyond that, except for the chorus, I have no idea, but that chorus is fun! And dig the actual camera noises that start and end the song!

Anyway, Number One is a decent robotic-sounding mid-tempo rocker, Inside Out is a nice ballad with a couple of really nice chord sequences (though the dissonance at times seems a bit out of place to me), and It's Not Imagination is a decent way to close out the LP version of the album. The point is, this is a perfectly decent album, if only for the overall sound, even if I can't totally put my finger on several of the actual songs. I wish that I could be privy to an alternate universe where the band made more albums after this, if only to see what they could further do in this direction, but I'll be perfectly satisfied with this.

OH! I forgot - the CD version of the album I have includes a FABULOUS bonus track in Heroes No More. I mean, maybe I'm just remembering the main keys/vocals chord sequence from somewhere else, and I'm transferring like for some other song to this, but in case that's not the situation, I just gotta say this is one of the loveliest New Wave melodies I've heard in quite some time. Yeah, that's worth a bump up from an 8 to a 9.

The thing that struck me the most when listening to this the first time was just how relaxed the band seemed when playing these sessions. I actually considered this a significant fault at first - I wanted to hear the band working its ass off with this material, not casually sitting back and producing their works well - but the second listen (a couple of months later) changed that permanently. I'm really amazed at just how comfortable the band members are with their EXTREMELY complex and involved material, and the way they're able to do different, interesting things with it with a minimum of fuss. For instance, during the Octopus medley, you have no idea how much it does my heart good to hear the majority of Boys in the Band solely on acoustic guitar (with all the intertwining stuff and everything). Or how much I LOVE the fact that, in the middle of Advent of Panurge, the band's "recorder quartet" suddenly plays Yankee Doodle. Or, well, the way that the songs from the first side of Free Hand sound so danged fresh every time I hear them, no matter what album they're on.

Surprises in the track listing (for me) include a previously unreleased outtake from the band's earliest days, called City Hermit (which kinda blows, if you ask me - even Why Not? sounds like a better song from their debut), a lovely rendition of Isn't it Quiet And Cold? (a great thing, considering the scarcity of live tracks featuring Phil on vocals) and an expectedly pretty rendition of Aspirations (a surprise given that Kerry never sang his lead vocal parts in concert, though I guess BBC sessions aren't really concerts, so never mind). There's also a standard runthrough of Cogs in Cogs, which doesn't make me thrilled, but hey, it's still better than ten minutes of So Sincere ...

In brief (yeah, what else did you expect? Another attempt at an exposition on Way of Life? I need a life, people!), if you're looking for a quick and easy introduction to GG, your best bet is probably a live album. Playing the Fool is slightly better, in my opinion, but if you can't find that but see this, this should be grabbed asap. Strange prog bliss lies in store.