STAND UP

After the debut This Was, the blues pattern was mostly history considering Jethro Tull, though the influences were there all the way to the future. Mick Abrahams went his way and was replaced by Martin 'Lancelot' Barre, and the life of Tull would never be the same again. Clive Bunker is still behind the drum kit, and survives his task more than properly. Glen Cornick(Who departed after the following Benefit album and was replaced by Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond) delivers some magnificent bass lines, especially in the Bach-piece Bouree. And then we of course have Anderson, the crazy mastermind behind everything. The woodcovered cover featuring the band is a legendary one.

Stand Up is a fine, but a bit uneven album. It consists of many all-time Tull classics like Bouree with the astounding flute-bass co- operation. Johan Sebastian would be jealous. Nothing Is Easy, the superb We Used To Know that was eventually ripped of by The Eagles, the bluesy New Day Yesterday and Reasons For Waiting, that reaches it huge climas in form of flutes and strings The whacky Fat Man is like straight from some distand village carneval. The soundscape of the record is a bit muddy, which can be heard already from the Barre's opening riff on New Day Yesterday. Partly this works creating the a bit jazzy and gloomy athmosphere, and partly it doesn't. But that's enough hifi-wanking.

There are some songs like Look Into The Sun and Back To The Family and Jeffrey(Hammond-Hammond) Goes To Leicester Square, that don't stand out so well like their comrades. Good sons all the way, but Tull can manage much, much better. Majority of the songs are very, very folky and there's the trademark flute, mandolin, balalaika, bouzouki and stuff. Truly we are talking about prog-folk here, Stand Up really defined that element into Jethro Tull's music.