BENEFIT

After the commercial success of STAND UP and their no-less successful USA tour, JETHRO TULL was asked to go back in the studio to take advantage of all the last good developments in their carreer. And in 1970 came out BENEFIT! their 3rd album already in less than 2 years!

Often considered as a transitional album between the goodies of STAND UP and their biggest baby AQUALUNG, BENEFIT can stand alone on its own merits. It took me a long time to get into it, and to be frank, i didn't listen to it very often back then in the roaring 70s. Luckily , i tried again with the new remasterised CD i bought first just for collection purpose, but finally, something ''clicked'' after all those years. Just have to be patient, i guess!

BENEFiT benefits(!) of the same line -up that was on STAND UP. The only modification is the arrival of keyboardist JOHN EVAN, first as guest, then he would become a permanent member for the next 10 years.He will help a lot of course to add more diversity to the JETHRO TULL sound, but also will prove to be a great stage showman that will have the band noticed along with IAN ANDERSON.

This is a hard rockin album compared to the first two. The guitar of MARTIN BARRE is well mixed in the front with raging riffs like on TO CRY YOU A SONG or WITH YOU THERE TO HELP ME. This is definitely NOT prog again, but can JETHRO TULL be really catalogued as a prog band??? Not really, this is JETHRO TULL music. Don't forget we are in 1970, year of LED ZEPPELIN 2, BLACK SABBATH 1, DEEP PURPLE IN ROCK. This is the year hard rock took off the groud. I guess JETHRO TULL was not immune to the outside sounds of the time and IAN ANDERSON asked MARTIN BARRE to go for it. And MARTIN doesn't stop; listen to him again on TIME FOR EVERYTHING and SON. He really brings a lot energy to the album. The flute is secondary and sometimes mixed in the back like on TIME FOR EVERYTHING.

Also, it is noticeable that the voice of IAN ANDERSON got also better, he sings his heart out with a strong powerful clear voice.There were no hits on this album, no BOURREE or SWEET DREAM, just 10 compact hard-energised songs made to rock. No string quartets either, just listen to PLAY IN TIME; You will never hear MARTIN BARRE playing again like a crazy demon like on this song in particular.

Again, we are treated with 4 good extra tracks with the remasterised CD edition . That just makes the listening of this album a wonderful experience , the same way it was with TIME WAS and STAND UP.

So 3.5 stars + half a star for the bonus tracks=

4 STARS

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