HEAVY HORSES

Armed with the best set of songs since Aqualung, Ian Anderson and co made this near-masterpiece of an album called Heavy Horses, possibly the best Tull album since Thick As A Brick. Compared to the previous album, Songs From the Wood, Heavy Horses sounds much more mature and "genuine" for lack of a better word. I cannot enough emphasise how much I prefer Heavy Horses over Songs From The Wood, which I found too jolly and whimsical, and even slightly silly in places.

On this album they found a very good balance between acoustic and electric instruments. We find here, of course, the expected guitars, organs, piano, bass, drums and flutes. But this time we also find lots of mandolin, some violin, some orchestral arrangements and other keyboard instruments, helping to make this a perfect mix of Folk, symphonic rock and hard rock. Compared to the follow-up Stormwatch, the balance is in favour of the Folk rather than the other two. Heavy Horses is very original and I would say its one of the best folk rock albums of all time.

This is an excellent addition to any prog collection! Highly recommended!