JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE

On Traffic's first three albums balancing between Mason's light melodies and Winwood's more complex and jazzier orientation was almost their trade mark. This album offers overwhelmingly jazz feeling, particularly inherent to the instrumental A side opener 'Glad', while 'Freedom Rider' and 'Empty Pages' sound as more common Traffic.On the B side of the record, however ,two proggy songs 'Stranger To Himself' and 'Every Mother's Son' are surmounted by beautiful acoustic arrangement of folky title track, where nice interplays between acoustic guitar, piano , vivid flute and percussion make one of the most memorable Traffic songs ever.And so the album which was considered to be Steve Winwood's first solo project turns to be full scale Traffic, moreover one of the best - to me, their best release for sure.