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Paul Smeenus · 11-09-2013, 09:19 PM

1972 was one of the greatest years in rock history. Consider some of the most recently released albums by September of that year (some of these were actually released in late 1971 but I still identify them as coming from '72)

Deep Purple - Machine Head
Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album (IMO one unbelievably overplayed overblown song from being one of the greatest albums ever made)
Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick
Yes - Close To The Edge
Wishbone Ash - Argus
Rolling Stones - Exile On Main Street
ELP - Trilogy
Genesis - Foxtrot
Neil Young - Harvest

In other words, some of the best work to come from all of these great bands. About to be released, but not quite out yet, was Black Sabbath Vol. 4. Well, that's a pretty good album but not the best Sabbath album, nearly by consensus, and while most would pick Paranoid my favorite Sabbath album was 1971's Master Of Reality, which in early September of '72 was the most recently released Sabbath album when I went to see them in Memorial Coliseum in Portland (Ozzy was bitching about Vol. 4 not being released all during their set)

Opening that show was a band I'd never heard of named Gentle Giant. We weren't exactly sure what to expect of course. So they get up on the stage, look at each other, then rip off a salvo of tighter-than-fuck riffs from the opening song of what I would discover after the show was their new album, their third release but the first to chart in the US, Three Friends. Then, they all stop on a dime. My friend and I just looked at each other in amazement and at exactly the same time said "TIGHT!", then they launch into Prologue, the appropriately named opening track from Three Friends

This changed EVERYTHING for me. This is the event that launched me headlong into the world of Progressive Rock, and I've never looked back. This was the greatest and most unlikely opening act I've ever seen, before or since. And I did enjoy Black Sabbath that night, very much so, but leaving the show that night all my thoughts were on obtaining a copy of Three Friends

Three Friends is a concept album, and a brilliantly conceived and executed one at that. The premise of the album is set up in the opening song, Prologue

Of particular note here is the simple little breakdown that starts at 3:02, then builds and builds.

The next track is "Schooldays". This track is just incredible, the way the vocals accentuate each other, the syncopated percussion, the storyline of a simpler life before each of the three friends were separated by the oppresive demands of adulthood.

"How long is ever isn't is strange - Schooldays together why do they change"

Then each of the now-adult friends tells their story

One friend becomes a laborer, a lunchpail workaday blue-collar wage-slave in "Working All Day"

This track ended side one of the vinyl record

Side two opened with the second friend telling his story of becoming an artist, and all the demons and debauchery and a sense of a life wasted that goes with it, in "Peel The Paint". This song was the closest thing to a rocker (although is starts quietly) on Three Friends and was the only track from this album that was performed live on later tours.

The last two tracks of Three Friends are melded together, they can't be played separately without ruining both songs, but before I review them both a note on the CD release. The idiot record company (I forget which one) COMPLETELY fucked up the separation point of the two songs, putting at the 3:23 mark (you can hear this happen in this YouTube). When you listen to this song it will just be unbegoddamlievably fecking obvious. It pisses me off to no fecking end that they not only fucked this up but to this day still stupidly insist that they are right and everyone else in the world is wrong. Idiots. But I digress...

The first section of this incredible medley is the third friend who becomes a "successful" middle-management business executive, "Mr. Class & Quality?" paint a picture of a man who looks down his nose at what he perceives as the lower classes, including his two schoolfriends

"Middleman sees straight ahead and never crosses borders
Never understood the artist or the lazy workers
The world needs steady men like me to give and take the orders
Give and take the orders
Give and take the orders"

This leads to the title track, the epilogue to the story, "Three Friends" (CORRECT timepoint 5:50)

"Once three friends
Sweet in sadness
Now part of their past

In the end
Full of gladness
Went from class to class"

What is most remarkable about this final track is that it is in fact one repeated musical phrase, and is without question the longest such repeated phrase in any music of any genre I'm aware of. The first 28 seconds of "Mr. Class & Quality?" opens with a doubletime tempo of this exact phrase, then once "Three Friends" begins at 5:50 it takes until 6:29 to repeat. This just had me floored back when I first heard this album and it still sends shivers up my spine today.

I've seen there's a poll here on MB about the Gentle Giant discography, I cast the lone vote for Three Friends. Not only is it a great album, but this is the band and the album that changed everything I thought about music. It is unquestionably in my mind the most under-rated Giant release.