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Rating:
(premise - the rating would be somewhere between 4 and 5 stars, as usual, I'll let you choose WHERE exactly)
Ok, let me start by saying that a review of Gentle Giant written by someone who calls themselves Panurge might seem a bit biased - and consequently unreliable, but by now, you must have got used to this sort of thing, so it doesn't seem worth getting paranoid about it.
You have probably already heard something about the Shulman brothers and associates, so a description of their style would be redundant. On the other hand, though, if you're reading these lines, it's because you want to hear it, or because you're waiting for me to say something stupid that justifies your well-placed criticism, or you are simply scratching your ovaries waiting for me to start talking about the album. Which I do immediately. Ahem.
If they told you that Gentle Giant makes the most complicated and complex music history can recall, full of polyrhythms, overlapping melodies, harmonies climbing over each other, time changes, and odd times by the dozen, etc., probably in your laborious little brain, visions of arid and withered lands where the primordial pleasure that music was born to provide has been definitively extinguished would form (unless you're flipped for this kind of thing).
Listening directly to the music, it might be that such a terrifying vision does not form - in fact, despite the description that - proudly - I have elaborated (showing a remarkable sense of climax) is not exactly false, despite this I said, the extreme intricacy that characterizes the music contained in the album that you see well represented on your screens does NOT compromise the noble and animalistic nature of Music. To make a comparison with painting, that of Gentle Giant remains simple figurative art, even if highly refined - it does not degenerate, in short (at least in the period 1970-74) into that notional and meta-artistic self-indulgence that seems to drive certain critics crazy.Let’s take an example: initially, listening to "The Boys in The Band" one might consider all those time changes as ridiculous and unnecessary; after a few listens, however, one realizes it's not "complexity for complexity's sake," and indeed - one understands that the arabesque structure of the song is an integral and indispensable part of it, and even more notably, one realizes that the song (to put it in youthful language) "rocks." It rocks differently from everything we've heard rock before it, but it rocks. Well, the style, you already know, is prog-art-jazzy-medieval-rock (ah...), and it essentially always swings between the "gentle" side, in songs like the curious "Dog's Life," or "Think of me with kindness," perhaps a bit saxy ballad but structurally impeccable - and the "giant" side, which dominates the Rabelais-induced "The Advent Of Panurge," in "River" and the already mentioned "The Boys in the Band" - three masterpieces that would make this album worth purchasing even if all the rest were white noise.
Ah, and then there's the purely medieval gem of "Raconteur Troubadour," the thousand overlapping voices of "Knots" and "A Cry For Everyone," where different melodic lines chase each other etcetera etcetera. It makes me laugh to think that back then they were a "minor" band, while now I would probably fall to my knees with tears in my eyes if someone came out with such an album. No, maybe not. But it's cool to say so.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 The Advent of Panurge (04:41)
There coming over Charaton Bridge
Look do you see the man who is poor
but rich.
What do you wish; and where do you go;
who are you; where are you from:
Will you tell me your name?
Rest awhile; call me your friend.
Please stay with me I'd like to help.
Then he said,
How can I speak when I'm dry and my
throat is burning. So bring me aid
and I'll answer your doubts.
Friend in need I'd like your help
Please take me home I'll stay with you.
Then he said fair Pantagruel
My name is Panurge and I have come
from Hell.
Look at my friend
Look all around you
Look at my friend
Take all round you.
Hey, Friend
(Improvised foreign words in middle section)
So brotherhood was made as their bond
Carried him home and provide for his
needs
and his shelter; this day was done
as no other the like.
Faithfully their vow was made and from
that day they were as one.
02 Raconteur Troubadour (04:01)
Gather round the village square
Come good people both wretched
and fair
See the troubadour play on the drum
Hear my songs on the lute that I strum.
I will make you laugh,
Revel, Merry-dance
Throw your pennies, then you'll hear
more of
the story-telling half
There's no other chance,
Always move on
Raconteur, troubadour
Take the face that you see for the man,
Clown and minstrel, I am what I am
All my family, not of my kin
Home, wherever, the place that I'm in
Humors give me wage,
Favors for my art
Rising, falling
Everyone struggle on
All the world's a stage
All can play their part
I have chosen
Raconteur, troubadour
Dusk is drawing my story is spun,
Dawn is falling my day's work is done
Morning, rested I set on my way
Find new faces to offer my play
I will make you laugh,
Revel, Merry-dance
Throw your pennies, then you'll hear
more of
The story-telling half
There's no other chance
Always move on
Raconteur-Troubadour
03 A Cry for Everyone (04:03)
Run, why should I run away
When at the end the only truth certain -
One day everyone dies -
If only to justify life.
Live, I've lived a thousand lives;
And anyone is the right, the just life.
If I could cry, I'd cry for everyone.
Doubts, no doubt, is all I know.
There is no fate, there's no luck,
what does
that show.
Showing is proof, but proving is nothing
but fear.
If I could cry, I'd cry then for everyone.
Hope, I've hoped two thousand years,
but
no one hears, so I've cried, crying
vain tears.
Always too late, too late to cry, cry
for everyone.
04 Knots (04:11)
All in all each man in all men
All men in each man.
He can see she can't, she can see
she can
see whatever, whatever.
You may know what I don't know,
but not that
I don't know it and I can't tell you
so you will.
To tell me all man in all men
All men in each man.
He can see she can't, she can see
she can
see whatever, whatever.
You may know what I don't know,
but not that
I don't know it and I can't tell you
so you will have to tell me all.
It hurts him to think that she is
hurting her by him being hurt to think
that she thinks he is hurt by making her
feel guilty at hurting him by her thinking
she wants him to want her. Her wants
her to
want him to get him to want him to get
him to want her she pretends.
He tries to make her afraid by not
being afraid.
You may know what I don't know, but not
that I don't know it and I can't
tell you so you will have to tell
me all.
I get what I deserve. I deserve what I
get. I have it so I deserve it. I deserve
it for I have it. I get what I deserve.
What I deserve - what I deserve what
I get.
I have it so I deserve.
He tries to make her afraid by not
being afraid.
05 The Boys in the Band (04:32)
(Instrumental)
Not to be confused with the play of the
same name - at least not the characters,
we hope. This piece is for Gentle Giant
as a whole - our engineer, Martin
Rushant, included
08 River (05:52)
Touching the last of what is past
Moving silent water fell the first
that comes
Slow and winding, flowing free
Peaceful music in its sound of distant
drums
Trust the shallow virgin stream
Danger wild, beware the deeper it
becomes
Moving highway, twisting byway
Can't turn back
Sining in the summer rain
Rain that's caught in its flow
Spreading, shining, silver lining
Gold on black
Echoes moods of the moon and sun
Sun that shines from below
Makes a soft and easy way
Left to choose its path will always be
a friend
Touch the last of what has past
Never idle river drifting to the end
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By Vituperio
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Although progressive rock aimed to bring a breath of fresh air to popular music... critics often targeted the grandiose suites of prog’s champions, highlighting the excessive technical exuberance.
