Civilian is the last Gentle Giant album — a lean, hook-driven rock record made in Los Angeles as a final bid for American radio, and a world away from the medieval counterpoint of their prime. Released in 1980, it failed, the band broke up, and it has been unfairly maligned ever since.

The short version

Civilian (1980) is the eleventh and final studio album by Gentle Giant, recorded in California with Geoff Emerick, formerly the Beatles’ engineer, at the desk. Made by the quintet of Derek and Ray Shulman, Kerry Minnear, Gary Green and drummer John Weathers, it consists of eight short, direct rock songs about modern life and urban alienation. It sold poorly, the band toured it once, and then called it a day.

One last throw

By the end of the 1970s the world had turned against Gentle Giant. Punk and new wave had swept away the audience for intricate, cerebral music, and the band had already tried to adapt on The Missing Piece and Giant for a Day. Civilian was one final attempt at America: they decamped to a Los Angeles studio in the autumn of 1979, wrote short songs with choruses, and enlisted Geoff Emerick to give the record a bright, contemporary sheen. The sessions were not happy ones — Kerry Minnear found them a strain, and Ray Shulman thought the whole Californian venture unnatural — though John Weathers enjoyed himself and was proud of ‘Number One.’

The sound

Nobody should come to Civilian expecting the Gentle Giant of Octopus. The polyphonic vocal writing, the medieval instruments and the shifting time signatures are largely gone, replaced by taut, muscular rock with big choruses and gleaming production. And yet it does not sound like anyone else. Gary Green’s guitar is sharp and inventive, Ray Shulman’s bass lines are supple and surprising, Kerry Minnear’s keyboards colour every corner, and Derek Shulman sings with real conviction. Simplified, yes, but never anonymous: even playing it straight, this band could not quite behave.

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The songs

‘Convenience (Clean and Easy)’ opens with a driving beat and Minnear’s chirping electronics, a wry look at modern comforts. ‘All Through the Night’ is an infectious rocker, and ‘Shadows on the Street’ — sung by Kerry Minnear — is the album’s most classically Gentle Giant moment, delicate and strange. The run that follows is the record’s heart: the riff-heavy ‘Number One,’ the urgent ‘Underground,’ the sardonic ‘I Am a Camera’ and the brooding ‘Inside Out,’ a study in isolation and disorientation. ‘It’s Not Imagination’ closes it with a snap.

Reception and legacy

Civilian crept to number 203 on the American chart and vanished, undone in part by feeble promotion from the label. The disappointment settled the question. Before the North American tour, Derek Shulman and Kerry Minnear told the others they would not carry on afterwards: family life beckoned, and the endless cycle of touring and recording had begun to feel like a job. Gentle Giant played their farewell shows and split in the summer of 1980. Long dismissed by devotees as the runt of the catalogue, Civilian has since been reassessed, and its best songs stand comparison with what other prog survivors were doing on the radio at the time.

The verdict

Civilian is not the album to discover Gentle Giant — Octopus, Acquiring the Taste and In a Glass House are where the magic lives. But approached as a fine melodic rock record rather than a failed prog one, it is far better than its reputation, and a dignified way for an extraordinary band to bow out. Come for the punch of ‘Number One’ and the beauty of ‘Shadows on the Street,’ and hear five brilliant musicians playing it straight, and still sounding like nobody else on earth.

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