Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
Gentle Giant - Octopus CD (album) cover

OCTOPUS

Gentle Giant

 

Eclectic Prog

4.31 | 2228 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Uruk_hai
5 stars Review #96

Everything about this album makes me glad. Really, I adore this album.

This was the first GENTLE GIANT album that I heard back in 2009, I went to a record store and I saw an album with a cover that I knew I've seen before: it was "Three friends" (with the cover of "Gentle Giant" actually, but I didn't know that back then), I knew my cousin had it and, since I was already in love with PINK FLOYD, KING CRIMSON, YES, and JETHRO TULL and I was searching more Progressive Rock to get to know the genre and I knew my oldest cousin had that album and I trusted his good taste I decided to buy it; it costs me $72 Mexican Pesos (more or less $3.50 dollars today or $6 dollars when I bought it) so I went home and played it.

When I heard the first song ("Prologue") I found out the CD was damaged so I had to go back to the store and exchange it for another copy, but they didn't have any other copy, they only had another GENTLE GIANT album that costed the same and that album was "Octopus", I went home with it, a little disappointed since I wanted to listen "Three friends" in its entirely but what I found was an absolute better album that became one of my all time favorites.

This album shows a very mature and more complex sound than any of the first three records of the band, it is also the last album featuring Phillip SHULMAN before he left the band. There is no song in this album that is not a masterpiece itself, I won't go one by one but only mention my favorite ones: "The advent of Panurge" opens the album with a great example of the voice play that characterized GENTLE GIANT, it is a very intense Rock song and one of the favorites in GENTLE GIANT's live performances; "Raconteour troubadour" brings back the medieval rock of "Acquiring the taste" but now we have a mainly acoustic song with violins and elegant percussions; "Knots" is amazing, if we had any doubt of the creative way of using human voices as instruments that GENTLE GIANT had this is the greatest example; "Dog's life" is another medieval stylized song with rock elements, I just love this kind of Prog; "River" closes the album with a very powerful and concise rock rhythm, it's just exquisite.

Now that I've heard all of the GENTLE GIANT albums I know what they were capable of, but being this my first approach to their music, I got a mind-blowing experience. I would never give this album any rate lower than 5 stars, I just could never do it.

SONG RATING: The advent of Panurge, 5 Raconteour troubadour, 5 A cry for everyone, 5 Knots, 5 The boys in the band, 5 Dog's life, 5 Think of me with kindness, 5 River, 5

AVERAGE: 5

PERCENTAGE: 100

ALBUM RATING: 5 stars

I ranked this album #5 on my TOP 100 favorite Progressive Rock albums of all time.

Uruk_hai | 5/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this GENTLE GIANT review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.