Review Summary: The first classic of the band. It confirms an amazing career though short.
“Acquiring The Taste” is the second studio album of Gentle Giant that was released in 1971. The line up on the album is Gary Green, Kerry Minnear, Derek Shulman, Phil Shulman, Ray Shulman and Martin Smith. The album had also the participation of Paul Cosh, Tony Visconti and Chris Thomas.
Gentle Giant was a British progressive rock band that was formed in London in 1970. The band was formed by the three Shulman brothers, after the breakup of the pop band named Simon Dupree And The Big Sound in 1969. Despite Gentle Giant have had a relatively short life, ten years, the band was able to released twelve albums, eleven studio works plus a live work. Anyway, Gentle Giant was and still remains as one of the greatest progressive rock bands during the 70’s.
With “Acquiring The Taste”, Gentle Giant had found their style and implemented it perfectly well for the first time. The dissonant counterpoint, the nearly eponymous debut peculiarity that made them renowned, has their first appearance in “Acquiring The Taste”. It has become an extremely varied, complex but at the same time catchy and very melodic album, which impresses with the colorful arrangements, the polyphonic singing and the multitude of instruments used. On this album, each of the six musicians, alternatively, played different instruments, with a massive use of electronic keyboards that gave a nearly symphonic feature to the album. With this album Gentle Giant begins the incredible versatility of their music that explores many various genres, ranging from jazz, blues, hard rock, experimental, classical and medieval, but always in the root of the tasteful prog rock. It makes of “Acquiring The Taste” a special prog work.
“Acquiring The Taste” has eight tracks. “Pantagruel’s Nativity” is one of my favourite songs on the album, a classic Gentle Giants’ track. It’s a continuous music with a nice melody. It has nice keyboards well combined with a powerful guitar work. What is most impressive is the use of many instruments such as saxes, vibraphone, celesta, harpsichord, tympani, trumpet, clarinet and so on. “Edge Of Twilight” is one of the most avant-garde musics on the album. It’s dark with a short vocal line and is nice to hear with a good explorative musical work. “The House, The Street, The Room” is another avant-garde music with nice melody exploring strange sounds. It’s one of the heaviest songs recorded by the band. Sometimes it reminds me the typical apocalyptic sound of Van Der Graaf Generator. The title track is a short instrumental, another avant-garde and explorative track with nice and catchy moments despite its length. “Wreck” is with “Pantagruel’s Nativity” one of the two best tracks on the album. It’s a strong song with the great typical vocal harmony of them. It has great and interesting passages especially the keyboards and guitar. It reminds me “Argus” of Wishbone Ash. “The Moon Is Down” is an interesting song that starts slow but that develops more energetic. It has nice and good exploratory passages with a nice vocal work. “Black Cat” is the calmer song on the album but it has more experimental passages. It has interesting moments but it’s the less inspired song on the album and the weakest too. “Plain Truth” is a solid rock song with the typical band’s guitar work and good vocal harmonies. It’s the most accessible, less complex, more traditional and less typical of them. It’s a solid closer for this great surprising work.
Before my conclusion, I’m going to say one more thing about it. It’s interesting to note, that in the sleeve text, the band made their declaration with the objective of defining what they wanted to do in their music:
«“Acquiring The Taste” is the second phase of sensory pleasure. If you’ve gorged yourself on our first album, then relish the finer flavours (we hope) of this, our second offering. It is our goal to expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of being very unpopular. We have recorded each composition with the one thought - that it should be unique, adventurous and fascinating. It has taken every shred of our combined musical and technical knowledge to achieve this. From the outset we have abandoned all preconceived thoughts of blatant commercialism. Instead we hope to give you something far more substantial and fulfilling. All you need to do is sit back, and acquire the taste”».
And all this is true, isn’t it?
Conclusion: This album represents a giant’s step into their music, relatively to their previous eponymous debut studio album. “Gentle Giant” is probably their less complex work and it’s for sure their most hard and heavy rock album. By the other hand, “Acquiring The Taste” is perhaps the most experimental, discordant and avant-garde album in all their career. This album has everything that characterized Gentle Giant’s music, the fusion of several and different musical styles such as rock, blues and jazz, the influence of the renaissance and medieval music and the prolific use of multi instruments. The band unites all the stylistic characteristics and is determined. It has intelligent, varied and playful prog rock. It only reveals its beauty and sophistication with a careful listening. But, this was what the band expected from us.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
