BENEFIT

I consider this album to be the first of the Jethro Tull truly-greats. I enjoy this even more than 'Aqualung'. But before going on, I have to just mention the difficulty I have concerning the five- star rating system:

I think Jethro Tull have released several five star albums, quite a number of excellent, also more than a few very, very good ones and also one or two albums that are still good but not quite up to their usual standard. These last ones on the ProgArchives scale would have to have a two-star ranking, but by the rating definition (and in my ears) require tree stars. Oh dear, I haven't expressed myself too clearly, but in essence I think I would prefer a ten-star rating to avoid unfairness.

But moving on: This is the Jethro Tull heavy riff album. But not dumb riff, but great riff album. Something that should give Black Sabbath something to chew on. These riffs have melody, and tons of it! The foot taps and taps, and taps some more. Not to mention the head-bopping.

There is not a single uninteresting song or tune on here, something that I can't say for 'Aqualung' for instance, where I do have one or two slight reservations. I'll get to that in my next review.

It seems that Anderson must have said: OK, we're going to go heavy this time, and if we do that, we might as well do it properly, but let's not get carried away.'

This record kicks...things. Hardly any daintiness here, There are one or two acoustically based songs as well, and I'm still not quite clear about how Jethro Tull manage to get the heaviness across on these too.

I know that some of the reviews here give this album a bit of a bashing, but although I might understand that from a Prog point of view, I still disagree because this album demonstrates how a recording can be both straight and heavy, and progressive at the same time. There are chord sequences here that go straight to the testosterone and still are way ahead of what chord bashing bands were doing at the time (and now, come to think of it).

So as I have not even the slightest problem with this offering from yore, I give it the full works of five stars.