Native Instrumentsthe Giant

The band's second album is a major advance on its first, featuring superior singing, playing, and songwriting, as well as a more unified sound, without sacrificing the element of surprise in the first record…

This concert captures Gentle Giant at the top of their form and the peak of their fame in the United States, coming off of a Top 50 U.S. chart placement the previous year for The Power and the Glory…

The group's first U.S. release in two years featured ornate playing from Kerry Minnear on keyboards and Gary Green's loudest guitar work up to that time. The Power and the Glory is also a fairly dissonant album, yet it made the charts, albeit pretty low…

Released as a standalone CD and also included in the Unburied Treasure boxed set, this live set represents perhaps the earliest recording we have of the band's live act…

The Last Steps is a document of Gentle Giant's last show. By the time they packed it in, the band's music had begun to decline, making their departure less painful…

Free Hand is perhaps Gentle Giant's most realized effort. After the excellent In a Glass House, the group further developed its Renaissance-medieval approach, producing one of the most creative and complex recordings in progressive rock history…

Free Hand was Gentle Giant's seventh album originally released in July 1975. This album was the most commercially successful of the band's career reaching the top 40 albums in Billboard Magazine. It stands as the culmination of the band's maturity, following the successes of 'In A Glass House' & 'The Power & The Glory'. Having toured Europe & North America non-stop in the years prior to this release with artists like Jethro Tull, Yes, Zappa etc, the band had gone from strength to strength…

The Missing Piece was Gentle Giant's last album to chart in the U.S. Until 1977 Gentle Giant's complicated music won them fans all over the world, but as market tastes changed, their fan base ceased to grow…

Returning to Gentle Giant's fourth album after any kind of lengthy absence, it's astonishing just how little Octopus has dated. Often written off at the time as a pale reflection of the truly gargantuan steps being taken by the likes of Jethro Tull and Barclay James Harvest, the band's closest relatives in the tangled skein of period prog, Gentle Giant often seemed more notable for its album art than its music…

Astonishingly daring debut album, not as focused or overpowering as King Crimson's first but still crashing down barriers and steamrolling expectations. The mix of medieval harmonies and electric rock got stronger on subsequent albums, but the music here is still pretty jarring…