{"id":160,"date":"2010-02-10T05:17:29","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T10:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=160"},"modified":"2010-02-10T05:17:29","modified_gmt":"2010-02-10T10:17:29","slug":"album-review-gentle-giant-in-a-glass-house-2010-reissue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2010\/02\/10\/album-review-gentle-giant-in-a-glass-house-2010-reissue\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Gentle Giant – In a Glass House (2010 reissue)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"If you’re not expecting it, the smashing glass sounds that open “The Runaway,” the opening salvo of Gentle Giant’s 1973 In a Glass House<\/em>, they’re a pretty jarring experience. While the use of found sounds in a musical context is pretty common in the 2st century, Gentle Giant’s use of glass-smashing to establish the song’s beat was rather groundbreaking. The nearest similar example is, of course, Pink Floyd<\/strong><\/a>‘s cash register opening of “Money” a mere few months earlier.<\/p>\n

“The Runaway” establishes the by-now familiar Gentle Giant balances of heavy\/light, intricate\/straightforward. Derek Shulman<\/strong>‘s middle-ages style vocal delivery juxtaposes against Gary Green<\/strong>‘s distorted guitar figures while the rest of the band vamps (sort of). Kerry Minnear<\/strong>‘s tuned percussion solo is an unexpected delight, and his sparing but effective use of synthesizers adds interest to a song already full of fascinating components.<\/p>\n

“An Inmates Lullaby” (sic) finds Derek Shulman weaving a medieval vocal line atop Minnear’s complex vibes melody. A percussion workout, the spooky, slightly unnerving tune charts a darker path than is typical of Gentle Giant.<\/p>\n

A scream kicks off the propulsive “Way of Life,” a high-powered tune that is vaguely evocative of Yes<\/strong><\/a>‘ “Long Distance Runaround” played at double speed. Kerry Minear’s multiple keyboard parts suggest Tony Banks’ work with Genesis, but with a harder edge. Unexpected meter shifts keep the listener delightfully off-center. Three minutes in, the song switches to a lilting renaissance fair style, and then back to a majestic keyboard-led interlude.<\/p>\n

“Experience” again crosses a medieval texture with prog elements like heavily distorted guitars and heavy bass lines. While “Experience” is the track on In a Glass House<\/em> that’s most accessible to standard rock audiences, it’s skewed enough — with musical twists and turns — to fit neatly into the Gentle Giant aesthetic.<\/p>\n

The lilting chamber music arrangement of “A Reunion” offers a break from the complicated music elsewhere on In a Glass House<\/em>. Derek Shulman’s expressive voice is equally adept at vocal acrobatics and mellow, bedsit melodies, and the brief “A Reunion” happily offers up the latter.<\/p>\n

The title track closes the album. Led by a sawing violin (well, really more of a British isles folk fiddle here) the song brings together all of the elements that make Gentle Giant special. As always, there’s much happening at once. An almost-funky guitar melody leads to a m\u00e9lange of keyboard instruments, all doing their own thing. Slow and deliberate one moment, frenetic the next, “In a Glass House” covers all the bases. Saxophone fills, stacked vocal harmonies, percussion left turns…they’re all here. The highlight of a uniformly excellent album, “In a Glass House” is nearly perfect exemplar of all the qualities that make Gentle Giant so revered in the annals of progressive rock. A brief, clever end piece ties the album together musically.<\/p>\n

In a Glass House<\/em> is highly recommended, especially to those musically perverse listeners who don’t think Yes was ambitious enough. The 2010 reissue is remixed, and digital versions include related bonus tracks.<\/p>\n

You may also enjoy my interview with Gentle Giant\u2019s Ray Shulman and John Weathers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Follow “the_musoscribe” on \"\" Twitter<\/a> and get notified
\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION:
\n\"I<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re not expecting it, the smashing glass sounds that open “The Runaway,” the opening salvo of Gentle Giant’s 1973 In a Glass House, they’re a pretty jarring experience. While […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[893],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-gentle-giant","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}