BENEFIT

After the original and attractive "Stand Up", Jethro Tull releases "Benefit", their third album. Without leaving aside their successful troubadour vein and medieval reminiscences, the band led by Ian Anderson enriches their musical proposal by incorporating tonalities and structures that turn "Benefit" into one of the most hardened works of their discography.

From the initial and persistent "With You There to Help Me" with an acoustic melody that absorbs the guitar onslaught of the very active Martin Barre, engaged in a duel of sharp counterpoints with Anderson's delay flutes, "Benefit" shows the hardest rock side of the band, endorsed by the dense "To Cry You a Song", where the guitarist creates consistent riffs doubled by Glenn Cornick's bass and accompanied by Anderson's megaphonic vocals, and also by the agility of "Play in Time", where again guitar riffs and flutes play as a team and give space to a very interesting and challenging solo by Barre.

On the other hand, that thickened wall of sound that "Benefit" brought with it, is nuanced by the long-suffering "Nothing to Say" and its excellent chorus and acoustic development, but above all by the new textures that the keyboards of guest and later stable member John Evan bring, as in the reflective "Alive and Well and Living In". And both the recurring reference to the flautist's school friend and future band member Jeffrey Hammond on the descriptive and personal "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me", and the neat and beautiful "Sossity: You're a Woman" dominated by Anderson's vocals, flutes and arpeggiated acoustic guitars, drawn from the band's purest and most recognisable folk style, complete the album's instrumental mosaic.

"Benefit" got a little caught and partially overshadowed in the middle of the successful "Stand Up" and the transcendental "Aqualung" and "Thick as a Brick" that followed one after the other, taking the shine off it. Over the years, fortunately, the album has gained value in general consideration until it is recognised today as the very good album that it is.

4 stars