BENEFIT

Jethro Tull's first masterpiece and my personal favourite from them, 'Benefit' is a brilliantly written, performed and produced record. There isn't a single song here which stands out, meaning that this album alone could be a 'best of' compilation (similar to their next two records).

Great songwriting, Ian Anderson once again proving that his flute is much more than a gimmick (despite the fact that there is noticeably less fluting on this album than on 'Stand Up', one can hear much improvement in Ian's flute sound), Martin Barre's mind-blowing Les Paul tone (which is just waiting for 'Aqualung' so it can pulverise the casual ear-dropper), Glenn Cornick's melodic and soft-sounding bass (which is important enough to mention, as both Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond and John Glascock would play with a pick and sport a much harder sound), Clive Bunker's jazzy shuffling and, finally, the first appearance of John Evan on a Tull record, who perfectly fits his piano into the band's sound.

As I said before, the songs presented here are perfectly balanced and, in my opinion, feature some of Ian Anderson's best lyrics (which is indeed saying much, as I'm yet to hear him write a bad lyric). Also, my two favourite Tull songs are on this album, the mentioned being 'To Cry You A Song' and 'Inside', but, again, every track on this album is a classic.

Some bands would dream of having a record like this, but Jethro Tull went on to show that they can do just as well, if not better than this on following releases.