Gentle Giant
Free Hand

Release Date: 1975 | Tracklist

“Free Hand” is the seventh studio album of Gentle Giant that was released in 1975. The Line up on the album is Gary Green, Kerry Minnear, Derek Shulman, Ray Shulman and John Weathers.


Gentle Giant was formed in 1970 by the three brothers Shulman, Phil, Derek and Ray. The group was known for the great complexity and sophistication of their music. The band had diverse influences like rock, jazz, classical music, blues and medieval music. They never had a huge commercial success but they managed to achieve a great cult of followers. I always saw a similitude between the careers of Gentle Giant and Van Der Graaf Generator. Both wrote some of the best, complex, original, creative and beautiful pages in prog rock history, but both had problems with the record industry and both had a small base of support fans, though faithful and unconditional in the supporting of both bands.

Strongly influenced by the music of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, “Free Hand” became one of the most popular and accessible studio releases made by Gentle Giant. The lyrics reflect the lost love and the damaged relationships between people. With “Free Hand”, Gentle Giant produced one of the most creative and complex releases in all progressive rock history. However, despite the complexity of their musical arrangements, their music is very accessible and melodic and their vocal approach was really very revolutionary for those times. “Free Hand” is a unique and unpretentious progressive rock album that couldn’t have been delivered by any other band besides Gentle Giant.

With “Free Hand”, Gentle Giant perfected their sound. Even if the underlying ideas haven’t changed that much compared to the last three albums, they are still adventurous enough and the implementation remains impressive. What was suggested in terms of sound on “The Power And The Glory” is taken to the extreme. The sound is fuller, denser than on the earlier albums, on which the individual instruments were always clearly defined. What is striking is the recurrence of Medieval and Renaissance references in the music, which were not so overtly audible on “The Power And The Glory”. I’m talking about “On Reflection” and “Talybont”. But other well known elements are also picked up here, like the beginning of the album with a finger-snapping rhythm, like “In A Glass House” with the breaking glass sound.

“Free Hand” has seven tracks. “Just The Same” has the traditional beginning of some Gentle Giant’s tracks. It opens with fingers snapping and ends in the same way. It’s a slow rock song with jazz influences and good keyboard work. It’s a great opener. “On Reflection” starts with one of the traditional trademarks of the band, with polyphonic vocals inspired by Renaissance a cappella music. It’s very interesting due to the changes between acoustic and electric instruments. But it’s essentially acoustic. It’s influenced by the troubadour’s songs of the medieval era. The title track is an elaborate and complex song. It’s a traditional Gentle Giant’s track with dissonant parts and constant changes of rhythm and tempo. It’s one of the best songs on the album. “Time To Kill” is the rocker song on the album with another traditional Gentle Giant’s overture, this time a computer game. It’s the simplest song on the album with jazz influences. The simplicity and the vocal parts are the main reason why it’s the least loved song on the album. “His Last Voyage” is the most tranquil piece on the album. It’s one of the most beautiful songs created by the band. It has good keyboard and guitar work. There’s a particular emphasis in Minnear singing that makes us feel the departure of someone to his last voyage to the afterlife. “Talybont” is a Baroque song with influences of the Middle Ages’ music. It’s an instrumental Medieval song, beautiful and agreeable. It seems to be composed for a sound track to a Robin Hood’s film that never saw the light of the day. Gentle Giant decided to include it on the album. “Mobile” combines in the opening of it, nice acoustic guitar, keyboards and a violin work in perfect harmony. It has some complexity where each instrument seems to play free and disconnected, but always with great harmony. This was a great choice to close this great work.


Conclusion: “Free Hand” is one of my favourite Gentle Giant’s albums and is one of my favourite progressive rock albums too. “Free Hand” is the last masterpiece created by the band and it’s also one of the most accessible of the Gentle Giant’s albums. The combination of a superb musicianship, dry wit, and creative compositions make “Free Hand” an essential piece and an historical recording. All of this proved that the band could write all types of songs that they wanted to do and that could be good, creative, complex and at the same time accessible and melodic. The album has great instrumentals, advanced vocal numbers, good ballads, acoustic and electric parts and exceptionally very well structured songs. Unfortunately, the future came to show us that this wasn’t the route that would be taken by them. And because of that, the decline of them became irreversible, despite their next album “Interview” is another great work.


Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)

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