Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Enigmas are there to remind us how not everything in life can either make sense or be pushed back into the limelight if the originators don’t wish to reunite and tread upon the same road once more.
Where other Progressive behemoths have reunified, have continued with a change in personnel, made documentaries together and pulled back the velvet curtain as Dorothy’s loyal dog, Toto, did when presented with the smoke and mirrors of Oz, Gentle Giant remind us that you may have been amongst the biggest in the world, but you can also take a step away from the ones pulling the lever, creating the illumination, and leave the production of the perplexing mystery to another’s Free Hand.
Arguably Gentle Giant were amongst the very finest that the first Progressive era had to offer those who sough more than just a two-minute pop song, clever, musically sublime, there was nothing to dislike about the band, and when after ten years they called it a day at the start of the 1980s, the void they have left has been, in many cases, insurmountable.
To resist the lure of reforming, to insist that the fans have had all they were ever going to get, in many cases goes wonderfully against the call of the nostalgic monetary gain; but that doesn’t stop the fantasy, the call for the enigma to be considered with a new treatment by one who is steeped in the knowledge of re-introducing old favourites but with a new approach in sound and production.
Steven Wilson is a living legend himself, and no stranger to tackling the much-loved albums of bands of the period, including excellent work on several albums by Jethro Tull, Yes and King Crimson, and now once again on the biggest Progressive enigma of them all, Gentle Giant and this time working his extensive knowledge and magic on their 1975 classic album release, Free Hand.
The album was Gentle Giant’s largest commercial hit in the U.S. and the tracks could arguably be seen as epitomising the freedom of expression they had long wanted to showcase, a free hand to present to the world something extraordinary, undoubtably off the scale when comparing it to the likes of Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Jethro Tull’s Aqualung or King Crimson’s In The Court Of The Crimson King, but which its charm manifests and puffs out its chest in gracious style, and one to which Steven Wilson own insight adds a depth of colour previously unimagined to the proceedings.
The tracks, Just The Same, On Reflection, Free Hand, Time To Kill, His Last Voyage, Talybont, and Mobile, were already opulent in their presentation, but there is a beautiful handling on the re-issued release that captivates and enriches the memory of a period of time when Progressive stood for something more, a diversity of sound that came from its Jazz influenced roots.
To adapt a piece of art for a new audience is always demanding, especially when the artist left the stage decades before and never returned, but in Free Hand, Steven Wilson has done Gentle Giant proud, has risen to the challenge of expression and kept it flexibly enigmatic.
Gentle Giant release the Steven Wilson’s remix of Free Hand on June 25th via Alucard Music/Soulfood.
Ian D. Hall