Giant for an Hour

They Say...

Review by François Couture, All Music Guide

There are various ways to pay tribute to your favorite band. Sadly, the most popular is to grab one of that band's best songs and churn up a half-baked cover version of it. Thankfully, the people involved in Giant for an Hour have opted for a completely different path. Put together by folks from On Reflection, the longstanding Gentle Giant newsgroup/fan community, Giant for an Hour features 15 songs and tunes inspired by the famous progressive rock band. There is no actual Gentle Giant song on this album, nor is there a single member of the band involved. However, the group's spirit permeates throughout and is very much alive. The artists are not amateurs either -- some are professional and semi-professional musicians, and all seem to know exactly what they are doing. Compositional quality varies greatly from track to track, as is often the case in such compilation albums, but there is not a single questionable inclusion in the lot. The artists draw inspiration from all eras of Gentle Giant's output, from the early symphonic sound (Tomas Stark's "After All These Years") to the complex contrapuntal/medieval stylings of Octopus (Dionysus's "Lord Forrest"), the harder-edged sound circa the Power & the Glory (Paul Beecham's "Craig-y-Nos"), or even the groovier, vamp-like sound of the group's last LPs (the Vaporizers' "George the Cat," a stylistical extension of "Spooky Boogie"). As for "Suit Yourself," Dan Bornemark's contribution, it genuinely sounds like a long lost and previously unheard Gentle Giant original -- the undisputed highlight. The album's two suites ("Arborea" and "Utopian Heights") are rather inconsistent, and some pieces feature annoying programmed drum tracks, but otherwise Giant for an Hour is a fine hour of prog rock music. Fans will dig the way each artist has adapted and updated the group's legacy, while unsuspecting listeners will be treated to a fair (and fairly fanciful) disc of prog rock.