Gentle Giant-Free Hand (1975)

Gentle Giant were always quite different within rock music, and their style was difficult for many progressive rock fans to digest. They combined challenging and varied music, incorporating medieval music, a cappella vocals, passages of delicate beauty, and moments of energetic rock. All these musical paths, and many more, sometimes converged in a single song, something that could be part of the general description of so-called progressive rock. Only the most open-minded musical listeners will find Gentle Giant's music accessible, and although they certainly never completely transcended their cult status due to their tendency to get too close to mainstream popularity and critical acclaim, they never sounded like any of the contemporary heavyweights such as Genesis, Jethro Tull, Yes, EL&P, or Pink Floyd, to name just a few. In 1975 came "Free Hand", the band's seventh album, an album that, while not reaching the complexity of works like "Acquiring the Taste" (1971), "Octopus" (1972), or "Power of the Glory", nor the more accessible later works like "Interview" (1976), managed to keep them in a privileged position within the progressive rock style of the mid-seventies. A dense, complex, and impeccable album, where from the vocal arrangements of the medieval "On Reflection", the mind-blowing and mechanical music of "Free Hand" with its instrumental intricacies in the purest jazz-rock style, the impressive and melodic "His Last Voyage", or the challenging and sophisticated "Talybont", not to mention the excellent folk-rock "Mobile" and the brilliant and accessible "Just The Same", all confirm that it is perhaps their most acclaimed and internationally recognized album, as well as their most essential work and considered one of the jewels of progressive rock from the seventies.