Music Banter - View Single Post - Gentle Giant - Free Hand (1975)
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Old 03-28-2011, 03:35 AM   #2 (permalink)
Guybrush
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Join Date: Nov 2008
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I gave this a very good .. but now I'm thinking I should've gone for Brilliant Why didn't I? Hm.

Anyways, I love this album. There isn't a song on this album which isn't great. As a Gentle Giant album, it rocks out perhaps slightly more than previous offerings, but their great audible enthusiasm on Free Hand just sucks me in. Still, to accuse this of being less proggier doesn't make sense to me. It's still Gentle Giant. It's still got more hooks than Hellraiser and more twists than a bucket of hagfish.

My favourites are the 5 first tracks. Not bad considering there's 7 tracks total. My secondmost favourite has changed a bit over time from Just the Same to Free Hand, but now I believe it is Time to Kill. The coolest track, though, and indeed one which I consider to be one of Gentle Giant's finest songs ever, is On Reflection. Like knots from Octopus, it has some amazing A Capella which is really such a Gentle Giant staple. But Whereas Knots mostly worked as some kind of awesome experimentation, On Reflection just works on more levels. It's A Capella, but it's also a beautiful ballad and before the end, it amps up with a little rocky outro. As a song to showcase Gentle Giant, it's perfect in that it contains elements of just about everything I love about them.

So, this is indeed a brilliant for me Soon as I change the poll at least.
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