GIANT STEP

Considered one of Indonesia's best progressive rock bands of the 70s, GIANT STEP got its start in 1973 in Bandung which is a city on the island of Java located east of the capital city Jakarta. This band was founded by Benny Soebardja who has been one of the most recognized musicians of the entire Indonesian rock scene. He started with early bands such as the cover band "The Peels" and then with the band "Shark Move" which crafted its own original compositions but after the shocking death of the co-founder Woman Loebis in a car accident, Soebardia decided to end Shark Move and start a new project. This led to the first lineup of his most famous band GIANT STEP which built upon the regional success of Shark Move but with the help of a UK lyricist named Bob Dook, the band began to add English lyrics to its works.

GIANT STEP released its first album "Mark I" in 1975 but failed to craft a cohesive sound as it flailed around like a headless chicken beginning with excellent hard rock and then shifting to folk inspired rock with further devolution to what sounds like cheesy Indonesian wedding music. The album was a mess and the band went back to the drawing board and honed its musical skills. While the strong melodic hooks were already in play as Soebardia had a knack for instant ear worms, the careful crafting of the compositions had not. The band's second album GIANT ON THE MOVE is where everything came together. Much of this came from the fact that besides Soebardja on vocals and guitar and Albert Warnerin on guitar, the other three members of the band were new. Bassist / flautist Adhy Haryadi, drummer Janto Soedjono and keyboardist / guitarist Deddy Dores clearly were more seasoned musicians up to the task of creating more complex musical workouts.

First of all, since there is not a lot of info out there about GIANT STEP or their albums it may not be obvious that there are in fact two versions of GIANT ON THE MOVE. The original vinyl LP was released in 1976 with only four tracks that add up to just over 30 minutes in playing time. These tracks in the correct order were: "Giant On The Move," "Air Pollution," "Decisions" and "Waste Time." The album was original released on the SM Recording label which folded in the 70s and GIANT ON THE MOVE was all but forgotten until Rockpod Records re-released both Shark Move and GIANT STEP albums onto CD and in 2017, GIANT ON THE MOVE was re-issued with five extra tracks with the following track listing: "Farewell Today " "Giant On The Move," "Liar," "A Fortunate Paradise," "Allusion Way," "Decisions," "Waste Time," "So Long" and "Air Pollution (8:04). I'm happy to report that this extended playlist which brings the album's playing time up to 56:29 is well worth the extra time as all the tracks absent from the original release are just as good or even better than the four originals.

GIANT ON THE MOVE is a true progressive beast sounding like a long lost 70s classic with influences from many of the European greats which GIANT STEP mixed together quite well. With King Crimson guitar sounds that added a bit of "Red" era heft along with touches of dissonance but teased into highly melodic catchiness along with Keith Emerson keyboard stabs, Genesis styled atmospheric symphonic touches, occasional Tull inspired flutes, arpeggiated folky acoustic guitars and a dramatic operatic bravado similar to the Italian greats of PFM or Banco. GIANT STEP did its prog homework quite well. Soebardia displayed a knack for instantly catchy melodies on "Mark I" and those attributes are alive and well on GIANT ON THE MOVE only they are augmented with more classical bravado that offers the other instruments to create more stellar progressive workouts. While the melodic touches rule supreme, there are more uses of off-kilter time signature extravaganzas and nice little deviations into extended jamming sessions.

Taking the nine track edition into consideration when reviewing this (all applies to the four original track edition as well), the strength of this album is how diverse it is. Whereas the debut sort of burned brightly and faded fast, GIANT ON THE MOVE manages to keep the album interesting for the entire run with lots of tempo changes, mood swings, dramatic outbursts and flavors that keep you guessing but best of all its all done tastefully in the context of the melodic flow much like the early pioneers of the symphonic prog scene such as Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer although with oft heavier guitar oomf. As with the debut the softer folky parts reminds me more of the Argentinian folk rock scene with bands like Sui Generis coming to mind. In addition to the prog bombast, there are plenty of psychedelic meanderings into spaced out dreaminess just as prevalent as the heavier outbursts of rock guitar heft. This is the album that made GIANT STEP stand out big time in its native Indonesia for its outstanding originality and ability to play prog in the big boys' league. While never finding the wider international audience that it had hoped for (and deserved) with this first all English album, this one is nevertheless an excellent album that deserves to find a wider audience than it has so far.

Considered one of Indonesia's best progressive rock bands of the 70s, GIANT STEP got its start in 1973 in Bandung which is a city on the island of Java located east of the capital city Jakarta. This band was founded by Benny Soebardja who has been one of the most recognized musicians of the entire Indonesian rock scene. He started with early bands such as the cover band 'The Peels' and then with the band 'Shark Move' which crafted its own original compositions but after the shocking death of the co-founder Woman Loebis in a car accident, Soebardia decided to end Shark Move and start a new project. This led to the first lineup of his most famous band GIANT STEP which built upon the regional success of Shark Move but with the help of a UK lyricist named Bob Dook, the band began to add English lyrics to its works.

The first GIANT STEP album was titled MARK 1 but the band hadn't quite gone progressive yet as it would full force on the band's second album 'Giant On The Move.' MARK 1 featured ten songs with half of them in English and the other in its native Bahasa Indonesia language. GIANT STEP was also a regional hit because while most Indonesian rock bands were covering material from the more famous English bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple or even Black Sabbath, GIANT STEP was boldly developing its own style as well as penning all original tunes while casting its gaze towards a wider market abroad. While progressive rock would soon become its musical style of choice, this debut MARK 1 shows the band at its origins as a regular rock band that crafted melodic tunes with some slight progressive touches mainly heard in the Styx like keyboard runs.

MARK 1 gets off to a fiery start with 'Child Hood And The Seabird' with heavy guitar riffs, pounding bass, dramatic drum rolls and passionate lyrics sounding more like Deep Purple at their most energetic dripping with heavy rock bravado. The track is instantly addictive checking off all the qualities of a seasoned English heavy rock band and by far the best track on the album. The song is replete with sizzling instrumental workouts including stellar guitar solos and could easily match any of the English greats as it emulated the regions in between Zeppelin and Deep Purple. It's just too bad that the albums starts to taper off with the second track and slower goes downhill track by track. While the second track 'Far Away' is a more reserved affair with a slower tempo and acoustic guitar intro, the tune still has a dramatic flare all its own with nice overdubs of guitar harmonies and sound effects. While Soebardja delivered a call of the wild vocal performance on the first track, here he displays a more controlled stylistic shift that works equally as well and the contrast is quite welcome.

'Fortunate Paradise' while not a bad tune nevertheless seems to cement the album into mellow mode with acoustic guitar arpeggios, winy vocals and the dramatic outburst of keyboard oomf but basically stuck in ballad mode albeit with extremely catchy pop hooks. While so far so good the album just keeps going down hill as the tunes get sappier and sappier. While the first five tracks in English are passable especially if taken as a pop rock album that reminds me more of the Argentinian folk rock band Sui Generis than a bona fide heavy rock band at this point, the final five tracks in Indonesian start to sound like sappy love songs that you would imagine are played at weddings. In fact all i can imagine is that somewhere in Indonesia these tracks would be played on karaoke night. The saving grace is that the melodies are tight and catchy but the songs get super cheesy.

GIANT STEP's first album should rightfully be titled 'Giant Mistep' because the band hadn't quite found its direction yet. While the opening track is outstanding and the next couple of tracks are very good, the album unfortunately devolves into a head scratching WTF is going on here schmalzy pop shlop sorta thang. This is really one of those albums artists would rather forget about, similar to David Bowie's first album or even Genesis. The band exhibited clear talent but it was not firing on all pistons. This is definitely not the place to begin for your GIANT STEP journey. That would be the next album, 'Giant On The Move' where all the prog-o-lisciousness comes into fruition. Oh, and the production is awful.