THREE FRIENDS

Gentle Giant

Eclectic Prog

4.13 | 1443 ratings

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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk

3,5 stars really!!!

GG's third album was the first one to be distributed in the US and sports the artwork of their debut instead of the much better European release. Clearly, for the conquest of the new world, these insane musos created a concept album about the tribulations of three childhood friends but they simplified a bit their customary complexity of their songs, making the whole album rather more straightforward the their previous work. Some purist might see this album as a step backwards, but I consider it as another necessary brick in the GG oeuvre. Martin Smith now having left leaving the three Shulman brothers as the only remnant from the SD&TBS days, he is replaced by the relatively more down-to-basics Mortimore and it is the weak point of the album (and maybe the reason of the simpler song structure), but there is more than that!

Apart from Schooldays and the finale, there is little on the album to really point at a full-fledged GG album as they are not shifting instruments or using dissonances or even extreme breaks of ATT album. The songs are relatively (this is still GG) common in structure and the use of more common KB (such as the organ). They even have a lenghty psychedelic guitar solo in Peel The Paint and a similar but shorter KB solo in Working All Day. My personal fave tracks are the last two on the album and I find that they save the album

If the prospective proghead is looking for a suitable intro for this particularly difficult group, this might be the album to start with along with the debut album. However I consider the debut still their best early album, until Octopus that is. Hopefully this album will one day be re-issued with its originally intended artwork. If you are lucky enough to own the Line A label re-issue , you are a lucky man!

Sean Trane | 3/5 | 2004-2-24

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